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Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog noted that Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple are incorporating a mechanism into their Web browsers to send a “Do Not Track” message but there is currently no legal requirement that a website honor the request.
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A poll by Consumer Watchdog found that 90 percent of Americans want legislation to protect their online privacy, and 80 percent support a Do Not Track mechanism. Another 86 percent want a single-click button on their browsers that makes them anonymous when they search online.
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The bills announced Friday give new impetus to allowing consumers to request they not be tracked, said John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog. “Demand for ‘do not track’ protection is swelling, and that makes sense,” he said. “This is an idea whose time has come, and I believe people will finally get the protection they are demanding.”
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The chairman of the powerful US senate commerce committee plans to introduce a bill [1] next week that will require companies to give online shoppers the opportunity to opt out of online tracking – and enforcement powers to the Federal Trade Commission.
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Still, it’s the first time such a bill has made it out of committee, and that’s a big deal, according to John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project. “This is the first time that a ‘do not track’ bill has actually had a hearing and been debated and then voted forward in the legislative process,” he said.
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“A Do Not Track mechanism would give consumers better control of their information and help restore their confidence in the internet,” Jamie Court, Consumer Watchdog’s president, said in a written statement after the committee action. “That’s a win-win for consumers and business.”
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Why should iPhone and Android users have to worry about being spied on by their smart phones? Shouldn’t we be able to say no to some of California’s biggest companies, Google and Facebook, when they violate our privacy daily by tracking us online and collecting massive amounts of our private information without our explicit consent?
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Consumer Watchdog said in its statement that the problem with do-not-track at the browser level is that there’s no requirement on the web site to honor the do-not-track request.
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The measure (SB 761), introduced last month by California Sen. Alan Lowenthal, requires the state attorney general to issue regulations that would require Web companies to notify state residents about online data collection and allow them to opt out. The bill, sponsored by Consumer Watchdog, applies not only to so-called personally identifiable information like users’ names, but also to unique identifiers, such as customer numbers of IP addresses.
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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Legislation proposed in California that would mandate a means for Web users to easily prevent websites from gathering their personal information is moving forward, despite intensive lobbying and opposition from some of the state’s largest Internet firms — including Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.
