FPF is thrilled to announce the addition of two new members to our advisory board, which includes leading figures from industry, academia, law and advocacy groups. Today we welcome Marcia Hofmann, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Danielle Citron, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law. Ms. Hofmann focuses on government transparency, civil liberties, and intellectual property issues at EFF. Professor Citron teaches Civil Procedure, Information Privacy Law, and Appellate Advocacy at the University of Maryland School of Law. It also might interest you to know that Danielle was voted the “Best Teacher of the Year” by the University of Maryland law school students in 2005. Both Hofmann and Citron will provide unique perspectives and are welcome additions to the FPF Advisory Board. We look forward to hearing their insights and to having them join our discussions about emerging privacy issues.
Economic Value of the Advertising Supported Internet
What is the value of all the advertising on the internet? The IAB has a report out. Some interesting facts and figures including a nice chart on where all those internet workers are located. One area that is not covered, and where a proper methodology would be hard but I think possible, would be drilling down into how much of the $300 billion in value is related to data use? How much of the value is due to the fact that eyeballs are online and how much is related to the mediums measurability using cookies and other tracking tools? How much is due to the use of appended data or behavioral profiles? Since most companies don’t break out some of these stats even for internal use, evaluating the economic impact of proposals that may limit data use would not be easy. Perhaps we will collect a group of academics, business and advocates (critics and supporters of robust data use) and see if we can do a follow up working off the IAB numbers. Interested in supporting such a project?
White House Cookies: Wrap-Up of the Open Government Brainstorming: Participation
The White House Open Government site will be hosting discussion of a few issues on Friday, including suggestions by FPF, CDT, EFF and Professor Peter Swire about updating the current government policy around the use of cookies.
The topic listed is as follows: Update the cookies policy to come up to speed with the latest in browser practices and persistence technologies. Enable agencies to harness capabilities of cookies by streamlining approval process.
Our sources tell us that the current cookie policy is indeed under review at OMB and a number of agencies and that staff will be looking closely at the input, so now is your chance to engage to ensure policymakers have the benefit of the best thinking about how to enable Web site analysis and personalization in a privacy sensitive manner.
We are glad to see reports of Facebook cracking down on ad networks improperly using user data, as well as deceptive come-ons. We believe that many of the of the problems of the online advertising system have been due to publishers and advertising leaving privacy and ad quality issues entirely to their ad network partners. Ad networks need to handle much of the compliance screening, but users expect the Web sites they visit to be responsible for what goes on. Web publishers and advertisers may well be legally on the hook for the misdeeds of these partners and need to be paying more mind to some of the deceptive ads that seem to run across many sites.
“KnowPrivacy” is a collaborative research project by Class of 2009 graduates of the Masters program at the University of California Berkeley School of Information. FPF advisory board member Chris Hoofnagle helped advise the students. In the project, the students examined the common practices among website operators of collecting, sharing and analyzing data about their users, and attempted to identify practices “which may be deceptive or potentially harmful to users’ privacy”. Overall the report does a great job at demonstrating how chaotic and confusing the online ecosystem can be for users.
Although the reports count of the number of “web bugs” detected grabbed the press headlines, the most interesting sections may be the analysis done of privacy complaints filed with the FTC, TRUSTe, the State of California Privacy Office and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The project web site and a copy of the report is available here: http://knowprivacy.org/
PrivacyCamp Washington, DC 2009
Co-sponsored by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum (among others), this inaugural “unconference” brings together interested individuals and organizations to share knowledge and foster collaboration. The event is June 20th, 2009, from 8AM to 5PM at the Center for American Progress (1333 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20005). You can register here and contact Shaun Dakin if you have any questions.
FPF Files Comments to FCC on National Broadband Plan
Yesterday, the Future of Privacy Forum filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the National Broadband Plan, which the Commission will be formulating over the next several months (FCC Notice of Inquiry Docket – 09-51). As a think tank focused on promoting greater transparency and consumer online data use, we believe that privacy issues should be at the forefront of any discussion about a national broadband plan. Privacy means that consumers are informed about and have control over how companies that deliver Internet services collect and use their data. Therefore, as we said in our comments to the FCC, “The national broadband plan should make clear that transparency and control are essential to consumers’ confidence about the privacy of their information online, and that only with such consumer confidence will we achieve the Internet usage that is tied to our national broadband goals.” It is our hope that transparency and control will be among the key ingredients in the national broadband plan, and we look forward to seeing the Commission’s ideas in 2010. To read more click here
Digg Will Charge Less for Ads It's Users Like – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
This is a very good move by Facebook because it resolves an issue we have always been concerned about — people who join, make their profile available only to friends and believe it is private. But then they join the Washington or other region network and dont realize that millions of people can now see their info. No more.
What do you think? Comment here using your Facebook log-in 🙂
Volume of the Obama Administration on Privacy
Our friend Saul Hansell at the New York Times has a piece today entitled “The Obama Administration’s Silence on Privacy, ” which references a speech given yesterday at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference.The speech was made by Susan Crawford, a science and technology advisor to President Obama. While we are often in synch with Saul’s take on things, we disagree that the Obama Administration has been “silent” on privacy issues. We were at the same conference where Crawford spoke, and her explanation of the President’s cybersecurity plan had a great deal to do with privacy. There is no privacy without data security, which is well-recognized in the new cybersecurity plan, which Crawford discussed and was laid out by President Obama last week. In fact, just days ago FPF applauded the inclusion of an official who will be focused exclusively on privacy issues within that plan. Furthermore, the HITECH Act amendments to HIPAA, which were part of the Obama Administration stimulus plan that passed in February, contain significant new privacy rules for health data. Agency staff are also working on a re-write of the out dated OMB Cookie Policy, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy is innovatively collecting public input on how to handle privacy, among other issues, in carrying out the Open Government Initiative. A top notch CPO is already in place at the Department of Homeland Security and has started examining how to use Web 2.0 in a privacy sensitive manner. So, it is not fair to say the Obama Administration has been “silent” on privacy.
Of course, we do have very high hopes for the Administration’s privacy and technology agenda and are eager to see much more happening. We think there is a pressing need for a overall Chief Privacy Officer . The Privacy Act needs updating, the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties needs appointees and so much more. But given the competing crisis of the financial system overhaul, the restructuring of the auto industry, plans for the health system and problems with Afghanistan and Iran, we are impressed with the amount of mindshare is getting and the amount of progress being made.
