Forwarded From: McIntyre <bkdelong@pobox.com>
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/18314.html
3:00 a.m. 8.Mar.99.PST
Who's Taking Privacy's Pulse?
by James Glave
Wired News
A Web survey expected to influence the course of federal privacy laws was
tailored and funded by industry groups that have battled such legislation
for years.
"This is the foxes stepping in to the henhouse and saying, 'We'll count
the chickens,'" said Jason Catlett, CEO of privacy advocacy firm
Junkbusters. "It is very upsetting."
The research, to be conducted this week by 15 graduate students at
Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, will scrutinize a
random sampling of hundreds of Web sites.
Starting Monday, the students will tally which sites request data such as
income and ZIP code, and how many of those sites disclose their practices.
The findings will form the basis of a Federal Trade Commission report to
Congress that will recommend -- or counsel against -- consumer privacy
protection laws.
Various reports have referred to the research as a government survey, and
the Online Privacy Alliance, a lobbying group, has not gone out of its way
to correct the misperception. An ad banner supplied to Web site owners by
a TrustE entity called the Privacy Partnership warns "The government
checks Web sites for privacy policies March 8."
On Friday, former FTC commissioner Mary Azcuenaga told an audience at an
ecommerce conferencethat the research was funded by the commission.
She was mistaken, and that has privacy advocates worried.
"This [survey] was industry-generated," said Mary Culnan, an associate
professor at Georgetown who is leading the study.
"I came in in the middle of the movie," Culnan said. "... the Direct
Marketing Association initiated this -- they had conversations with the
FTC about wanting to do a follow-up survey."
The Direct Marketing Association is one of more than a dozen companies and
lobbying groups that Culnan said had been "participating in the design of
the study." Others include the Online Privacy Alliance, Time Warner,
America Online, IBM, TrustE, Tandem, Compaq, Microsoft, Ernst and Young,
Better Business Bureau Online, MatchLogic, PrivaSeek and eBay.
The Direct Marketing Association and other industry groups have
successfully blocked legislation to protect consumer privacy online,
claiming that such laws would impede their ability to do business.
Culnan is a respected researcher, statistician, and the author of numerous
books and journal articles on privacy and public policy. She has testified
before Congress on a range of privacy issues, including telecommunications
privacy, public records, direct marketing, credit reporting, and private
sector use of Social Security numbers.
The survey results are being audited by Ernst and Young, which recently
began an ecommerce privacy assurance practice.
"The study is independent," said Culnan. "I have no stake in it. I am
making no recommendations. I am just reporting the data."
The Privacy Partnership, an ad-hoc industry group opposed to consumer
privacy regulations, has established a Web site about the Georgetown
survey, designed to urge businesses to post privacy disclosure statements
online.
But the page does not mention who designed and will pay for the research.
FTC commissioner Sheila Anthony said that she was not concerned that the
Direct Marketing Association backed the study.
"They have come to us for our methodology [used in a previous FTC-run
survey a year ago] and we have had substantial input to make sure that the
survey does provide some representation of what is going on out there,"
Anthony said.
"Of all the industry groups, the Direct Marketing Association is among the
most responsible," she added. "They have been providing a leadership role
for their members on privacy and how important it is."
The Direct Marketing Association could not be reached for comment on
Friday.
Mark Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
said that the survey is a pointless exercise in lieu of real privacy
protection.
"The time for surveys has passed," said Rotenberg. "The current survey is
largely a stalling tactic -- they are trying to put off a serious
discussion as to whether self-regulation works."
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:31:34 1999