Stage Set for Showdown on Online Privacy

[Basil Chupin]

WASHINGTON After do not call lists became popular, more than 90

percent of people who signed up reported fewer annoying telemarketing
calls. Now, privacy advocates are pushing for a similar do not track
feature that would let Internet users tell Web sites to stop
surreptitiously tracking their online habits and collecting clues about
age, salary, health, location and leisure activities

That proposal and other ideas to protect online privacy are setting up a
confrontation among Internet companies, federal regulators, the Obama
administration and Congress over how strict any new rules should be.

In the next few weeks, both the Federal Trade Commission and the
Commerce Department are planning to release independent, and possibly
conflicting, reports about online privacy.

Top Commerce officials have indicated that the department favors letting the industry regulate itself,
building on the common practice of user agreements where companies post
their privacy policies online or consumers check a box agreeing to abide
by them.

Top trade commission officials, however, have indicated they are
exploring a stricter standard, one that requires a do not track option
on a Web site or browser similar to the do not call lists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/business/media/10privacy.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

-- 
"Will the highways of the internet become more few?"
      George W Bush