Press Release
Santa Monica, CA — The Do Not Track Me function proposed in the Federal Trade Commission’s recently released online privacy report must be extended to include smartphones, Consumer Watchdog said today in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article showing how applications for the iPhone and Android phones widely share personal data without the users’ knowledge or consent.
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That answer isn’t satisfactory for privacy pundits such as Consumer Watchdog’s John M. Simpson. “Google’s refusal to give data gathered by its Street View cars from private WiFi networks to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal underscores the need for a Congressional hearing,” Simpson said. “What is Google hiding?
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The Wikileaks documents released in the past few days revive that question, first posed in 2006 when the search engine entered the world’s largest market, by revealing some of the hardball tactics that Beijing’s communists are using to bring Mountain View’s capitalists to heel.
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The idea of opening a Commerce Department privacy office, which officials said was underway, came under fire from the privacy group Consumer Watchdog, which said the office may not have enough of a consumer focus. “There is a fundamental conflict of interest in putting the administration’s Privacy Policy Office in the Commerce Department,” said John Simpson, a privacy expert with the group, whose sentiments were echoed by other privacy organizations.
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While pleased that the agency is bringing attention to the need to do more to protect consumer privacy online, representatives from five privacy groups said in a conference call that the report’s proposed measures are too focused on industry self regulation. It’s a “Christmas gift to the data collection industry from the Obama administration,” according to John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog.
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The Commerce Department paper calls for an online privacy bill of rights and codes of conduct for Internet companies, with enforcement by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. But several privacy groups questioned whether the codes of conduct would be effective because of the paper’s suggestion that affected companies help write them. The policy recommendations in the report are an “early Christmas gift to the data collection industry,” said John Simpson, consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog.
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John Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, said the report starts off on the wrong foot with its very title – ‘Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework.’ “They talk about commercial data privacy,” Simpson said. “What we should be talking about is consumers’ data and their right to privacy, not a business commodity. This is all about easing things for businesses. It’s in some sense I think an early Christmas gift to the data collection industry from the Obama administration.”
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Consumer groups including Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy, both based in Washington, have raised concerns about how Internet marketing companies compile personal information to target online users with advertising. The FTC said in a privacy report released Dec. 1 that data collection on the Web is sometimes done “in an irresponsible or even reckless manner.”
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC — The Commerce Department’s “Green Paper” about online privacy is an industry friendly document that would perpetuate current failed practices that give companies, not consumers, control of consumer data, Consumer Watchdog said today.
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Privacy advocates praised the move, saying that tracking has gotten out of hand. “Consumers have a right to know what information is gathered about them, how it is used and whether it is gathered at all,” says John M. Simpson, spokesman for the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.
