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August 7, 2007

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission in the US) is scheduled to host a two-day conference on targeted advertising in two months, following a series of complaints by some privacy groups.

Jessica Rich, assistant director for the FTC's division of privacy protection said "this meeting is meant to learn more about some current practices in targeted advertising. The FTC wants to hear how Internet advertising companies protect the personal data they collect, how they notify consumers about that data and whether the data is sold or used by other agencies."

Rich added "is it secure where it is stored? Are agencies following any kinds of standards? These are questions that we get a lot, and many industry observers have also."

In three months, the CDD (Center for Digital Democracy) and the U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) filed a joint complaint with the FTC against Microsoft and other Internet-based advertising companies, accusing them of using "unfair and deceptive" business methods to collect data about their potentially new and older customers.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, the state of New York and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have also asked the FTC to examine targeted advertising, Rich added.

The CDD and US PIRG complaint accused Microsoft and other companies of violating customers' privacy rights.

All these various groups said in their complaint that "Microsoft has been working hard on a wide-ranging data collection and targeting scheme that is grossly deceptive and unfair to millions of users."

In response, Microsoft has said it has a "clear and understandable" privacy policy, and that it is strongly committed to customers' choices about privacy and confidentiality issues.

A Microsoft spokeswoman wasn't immediately available for comment on the FTC forum. The CDD called for the FTC to take appropriate actions on its complaint, not host a forum.

Jeff Chester, CDD's executive director said "the idea that the FTC needs to collect additional data before it can act to protect consumers is absurd. Our complaint and the daily information we have submitted to the FTC provides sufficient and compelling evidence for action. The FTC should be issuing rules, not invitations for an industry talkfest that will result in additional delays in protecting consumers."

Asked about bad practices being used currently, Rich didn't give any specific examples.

However, if an online advertising company didn't follow its own privacy policy, that's something the FTC could investigate, she said.

Interested parties need to note that the FTC forum is scheduled for Nov. 1 and 2 in Washington, D.C. This will be the second FTC forum focused on targeted advertising, but there are new technologies since the last forum in 2000, Rich said.

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Source: IT World.com