FTC: Has Internet Gone Beyond Privacy Policies?

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Consumer Protection Chief David Vladeck question whether the Internet had evolved past privacy policies. Both have signaled to Internet publishers and advertisers that they expect the commission to take a more active role in safeguarding consumer privacy.

Previous commissions looked at privacy under the framework of whether consumers were harmed, and with the basis that companies must advise consumers about what they're doing and obtain their consent, Chairman Leibowitz said. But companies "haven't given consumers effective notice, so they can make effective choices," he said. Advise-and-consent "depended on the fiction that people were meaningfully giving consent," Vladeck said. "The literature is clear" that few people read privacy policies, he said. While first-party uses of data were generally within consumers' reasonable expectations, he said, more questions arose around data brokers, data aggregators, social networks, cloud computing and mobile marketing.