FTC Chair Testifies About Aggressive Children’s Privacy Agenda
During a recent Senate committee hearing on consumer privacy, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Jon Leibowitz described “aggressive” efforts the agency has undertaken to protect children’s online privacy. He referred to actions taken over the past decade against website operators that collected information from children without parental consent, as required by federal law. Among the companies that agreed to pay fines and change their practices were Hershey Foods Corp., Mrs. Fields Famous Brands, Inc. and American Pop Corn Co., which allegedly failed to comply with the law when engaging children in online games and birthday-related activities.
Leibowitz also noted that FTC plans to release a report later this year reflecting input from a number of stakeholder roundtables on privacy protection in an environment of new technologies and business models. According to Leibowitz, the commission is now conducting a comprehensive review of its parental notice rule “in light of changing technology, such as the increased use of mobile devices to access the Internet.” The agency is also “assessing the privacy implications of online behavioral advertising” and “how best to protect and provide effective choice for the use of sensitive information, such as health, financial, children’s, and location data.”
Senator Claire McCaskilll (D-Mo.) reportedly commented during the July 27, 2010, hearing that she is “a little spooked out,” by behavioral targeting, saying she feels like she is being “followed around.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) apparently echoed her concerns, stating, “We have a duty to ask whether . . . millions of Americans . . . fully understand and appreciate what information is being collected from them and whether or not they are empowered to stop certain practices from taking place.” Leibowitz reportedly told committee members that the FTC is “gravitating to an opt-out of behavioral targeting [for multiple sites] through a single entity.” While Leibowitz did not believe that online users would likely use an “opt-out” to the extent that consumers use the “do not call” registry, the availability of the choice is seen as reassuring. See FTC Press Release and Advertising Age, July 27, 2010.
