On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a stern 73-page report on privacy, which outlines a demand for Congress to pass comprehensive data privacy legislation. The FTC wants to mandate that U.S. commercial data collectors implement a “Do Not Track” button on Web browsers by the end of the year, or the agency says it will demand Congress act on the matter through the legislative process. The report also addressed offline data brokers who buy and sell names, addresses, and other personal information, to create a centralized data base for consumers to have access to their data.
Simply put, your computer is your property. No one has the right to put anything on [your computer] that you don’t want[.]” – Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC, Monday, March 26, 2012.
In response to the FTC report, Ms. Linda Wooley, executive vice president of Direct Marketing Association, stated that such an endeavor would be expensive, difficult to secure, and that the type of data used by marketers “doesn’t harm consumers.” By issuing the report, the FTC hopes that the online advertising industry will begin to conform to its voluntary guidelines so that regulations will not be necessary. Last month, the FTC and online advertising industry agreed to develop a “Do Not Track” mechanism that would limit Web tracking, but since then, the agreement has been heavily debated over how to interpret what “Do Not Track” means.