Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz has been encouraging ISPs and advertisers to provide a flexible, consumer-friendly regime for protecting privacy online, and specifically allowing the broadband nation to better control how their information is tracked and used online.
He is encouraged by their progress, but still says the industry needs to do more, and fast. As the FTC vets hundreds of comments in preparation for a policy report on what the government and industry can do to make sure they are on “the right side of consumers,” Leibowitz talked with Multichannel News Washington bureau chief John Eggerton for the Feb. 21 cover story, Privacy Please.
MCN: Let’s say you had a roomful of ISPs and advertisers in a room, what would you advise them to do to avoid the threat of regulation?
Jon Leibowitz: One of the most important things, and cable operators know this, is you want to be on the right side of consumers. I think the way you do that is to offer them more choice and transparency and more privacy protection. Those seem pretty fundamental.
And I think most cable operators and programmers want to do the right thing. We’re beginning to see some promising signs from industry.
Read more on Multichannel.com