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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.
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“This is an improvement from the current Wild West that is the mobile market,” said John M Simpson of the Californian Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project.
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“The only problem with this, is that the W3C has yet to agree what ‘Do Not Track’ technical standards and compliance obligations will be,” John Simpson, director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said in a statement. “If the W3C standards are stricter than industry wants, I can’t believe they will follow them. I hope not, but this may actually be an effort to undermine the W3C process.”
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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,” says John Simpson, spokesman for Consumer Watchdog. ” I am skeptical about the ‘multi-stakeholder process’, but am willing to make a good faith effort to try it.
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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,” John M. Simpson, privacy project director for Consumer Watchdog, said in response to the administration’s plan. “A concern is that the administration’s privacy effort is being run out of the Commerce Department.”
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA – The Obama Administration’s blueprint to protect online privacy with a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” unveiled today could provide meaningful protections, Consumer Watchdog said, but warned that the test of its effectiveness will come as the implementation unfolds. The nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest group also voiced a concern that an announced Internet industry commitment to honor “Do Not Track” could be aimed at undercutting an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to create a strict Do Not Track standard.
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Privacy group Consumer Watchdog praised the White House privacy announcement, although the group had not seen the proposals as of Wednesday evening. “From what I understand to be in it, the report may represent real progress,” said John Simpson, privacy project director for the group. “Enforceable codes of conduct could matter. Baseline privacy legislation could make a difference.”
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The latest public letter was penned by Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project Director, John M. Simpson, and was addressed to the House’s subcommittee Chair Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Ranking Member G.K Butterfield, (D-NC). It starts: “I am writing on behalf of Consumer Watchdog to urge you to call Google’s CEO Larry Page to testify before your committee to explain his company’s disingenuous statements about its supposed commitment to users’ privacy.”
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“If Google is allowed to dominate the mobile market it will result in higher prices for consumers and stifle innovation,” warned Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson.
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Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson points out that personalized advertisements targeted directly to a specific user, based on user-collected information, can be “a substantial amount” more lucrative than just an anonymous ad. And with all the information Google can collect about your interests from your searches, your Google Docs, and your favorite YouTube videos, they can figure out pretty specifically what ads they should show you. “They are positioning this as streamlining privacy,” Simpson says. “But that’s just PR. It’s all about better targeting for advertisers.”
