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John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project, said the FTC should have called for legislation on Do Not Track as well. But overall the report represents progress on data privacy, he said.
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Following the report’s release, Consumer Watchdog, an organization whose name leaves little to imagination as to its purpose, praised the FTC for supporting the ‘Do Not Track’ mechanism that will hopefully return control of data collection to the people of the internet. Consumer Watchdog has been at this fight for a couple of years, working to get consumer privacy reform at the top of the government’s to-do list. “Those efforts are paying off,” said John M. Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project. “The FTC’s support of Do Not Track means that consumers should have a meaningful way to control the tracking of their online activities by the end of the year.”
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — Consumer Watchdog praised the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy report released today supporting a Do Not Track Mechanism that will help give people control of the collection and use of their personal data when they are online.
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California-based Google critic Consumer Watchdog called Google’s sweeping changes a “spy policy” rather than a privacy policy, an allusion to the fact that the move will help Google funnel data on users in one larger silo for targeted ads.
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WASHINGTON – As watchdog groups urge a slowdown in Google’s new privacy policy, Rep. Mary Bono Mack’s office announced Tuesday a hearing on privacy issues March 29 in which Google will likely participate.
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The letter was signed by Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), John Simpson, privacy policy director at Consumer Watchdog, Susan Grant, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), and Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG).
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five consumer and privacy groups today joined in sending a letter to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade calling for public hearings on Google planned privacy changes, rather than a secret briefing.
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“The real question is how much influence companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook will have in their inevitable attempt to water down the rules that are implemented and render them essentially meaningless. I am skeptical about the ‘multi-stakeholder process’, but am willing to make a good faith effort to try,” John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said in a statement.
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Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit research and advocacy group in California, said the approach will work only if influential companies don’t water down the rules to render them meaningless. “I am skeptical about the ’multi-stakeholder process,’ but am willing to make a good-faith effort to try,” said John M. Simpson, the group’s privacy project director. He’s referring to the various parties with competing interests tasked with making the rules.
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A coalition of 11 consumer advocacy agencies and civil liberty and privacy organizations has responded by releasing a set of principles for the multi-stakeholder process. This “would ensure a fair process,” John Simpson, consumer advocate at coalition member Consumer Watchdog, told TechNewsWorld.
