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Obama Asks Congress to Pass Online Privacy Bill

Mar 17, 2011  •  Post A Comment

"The Obama administration asked Congress to pass an online-privacy law today, a set of ‘baseline’ protections that would act as a privacy bill of rights, a significant move designed to settle the continuing digital-privacy debate," writes Edmund Lee at Advertising Age.

According to the article, "The current self-regulatory effort, called About Ads, allows consumers to decline being targeted for advertising purposes, but it does not allow people to decline being tracked altogether. The FTC has been looking for more legislative teeth in the form of a do-not-track law that would prevent companies from collecting any data on anyone who chooses not to be tracked, no matter the purpose.

"The Wall Street Journal reported [on Wednesday, March 16, 2011] that a group of 30 online ad companies is looking to support a do-not-track tool that would work with web browsers, which is different from the About Ads program, suggesting that there’s a fair amount of jockeying going on to curry favor with government regulators and consumers.

"But while some bills that have recently been proposed center around a do-not-track tool, the bill that has the best chance of passing so far, according to insiders, is the draft legislation currently being circulated by Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which, so far, does not include a call for a do-not-track provision."

To read Lee’s entire piece, please click here.

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