Internet Privacy Legislation

To the Editor:

Re “A New Internet Privacy Law?” (editorial, March 19):

No one opposes strong consumer privacy protections, least of all digital media businesses that depend on consumer trust and safety for their livelihood. Indeed, the principles laid out by Senator John Kerry are those that the industry adopted in July 2009, embedded in a self-regulatory mechanism launched by the Council of Better Business Bureaus in January, and voted unanimously into a membership code of conduct by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in February.

Yet you want to go further, into areas that are wholly uncharted. You want legislation to require Web browsers to include a universal do-not-track option, when even the Federal Trade Commission concedes that it has no adequate definition of data tracking, collection or first-party marketing.

You want enforcement of “clear standards,” when there are no standards in custom, let alone law, to determine whether, for example, cookies used to limit spam in consumers’ browsers should be deemed “their information” and subject to government control.

The Digital Advertising Alliance, representing more than 5,000 companies in six major trade associations, has enabled a safe, sane and simple self-regulatory system for assuring consumers transparency, notice, choice and control of their data. You are premature in calling for legislation when no need exists.

Randall Rothenberg

President and Chief Executive
Interactive Advertising Bureau
New York, March 19, 2011