Melissa Ngo of Privacy Lives blogged about her participation and the issues addressed in yesterday’s first of three FTC Roundtable:
The Federal Trade Commission had the first of three privacy roundtables yesterday, and I spoke on a panel about online targeted behavioral advertising. The other speakers on the panel were: Jeff Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy; Dave Morgan, CEO, Simulmedia, Inc.; Zoë Strickland, Vice President, Chief Privacy Officer, Walmart; Berin Szoka, Director, Center for Internet Freedom, The Progress & Freedom Foundation; Omar Tawakol, CEO, BlueKai; Craig Wills, Associate Professor, Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; and Linda Woolley, Executive Vice President, Government Affairs, Direct Marketing Association. Moderators: Peder Magee and Michelle Rosenthal, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, FTC.
A New York Times article on the roundtable quoted me about a fundamental issue that divides industry and consumer advocates: opt-in or opt-out. Opt-in, the choice of consumer advocates, puts the burden on companies to have strong privacy protections and use limitations so consumers will choose to share their data. Opt-out, the choice of the majority of ad industry players, puts the burden on consumers to learn about what the privacy policies are, whether they protect consumer data, whom the data is shared with and for what purpose, and how to opt-out of this data collection, use and sharing.
Read more on Privacy Lives.