Christopher Wolf writes:
Maneesha Mithal from the FTC Division of Privacy and Identity Protection spoke today at the Online Trust Alliance Forum in Washington, DC and provided some insights into the forthcoming FTC Report on Privacy, following the three recent Roundtables conducted by the Commission. She cautioned that the Commissioners had not yet reviewed and approved the Report, and that it may change, but said the following:
There are five fundamental findings about privacy today that will be included in the Report:
- There is increased collection, storage and use of data.
- Consumers are largely unaware of the use of data, especially the practices of the data broker industry and behavioral advertising. Notice and choice has been a disaster.
- Consumers really do care about privacy.
- Innovation in the Internet economy is important, and free content that is provided through the collection of information also is important.
- There is a blurring of the distinction between personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information.
Read more in the Chronicle of Data Protection.