Consumer Groups Urge Tougher Online Privacy Regime

With the Administration preparing to weigh in with its final recommendations on privacy rights in the digital age, consumer groups from the US and Europe are calling on it not to rely on what they call the "flimsy self-regulatory system" proposed in a preliminary report.

The preliminary report does not take positions on do-not-track or opt-in/opt-out regimes, two big issues in the online privacy debate. The final recommendations are meant to be the basis of the Obama Administration's policy position on the privacy issue. The letter, sent to the Federal Trade Commission and European officials from the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue, the combined U.S./EU consumer group that includes Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America and Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), USPIRG and others, is an effort trying to head off privacy bills and regulations that rely on an icon-based opt-out regime, which they say is just an attempt to "quell" a "growing uproar" over online behavioral advertising (OBA).