According to the Wall Street Journal the Obama administration is going to establish a committee or czar to oversee implementation of Internet privacy rules that are coming down in a Commerce Department report:
The Obama administration is preparing a stepped-up approach to policing Internet privacy that calls for new laws and the creation of a new position to oversee the effort, according to people familiar with the situation . . .
In a related move, the White House has created a special task force that is expected to help transform the Commerce Department recommendations into policy, these people said. The White House task force, set up three weeks ago, is led by Cameron Kerry, the brother of Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) and Commerce Department general counsel, and Christopher Schroeder, assistant
This deals what you might call a major blow (even a death blow) to the IAB’s “self regulation” efforts, which don’t address the entire scope of privacy issues online. Hopefully regulators will strike a balance and protect consumer privacy interests while allowing for appropriate ad relevance and targeting.
Since early 2008 I’ve been predicting Congressional action on privacy. Here are previous posts I wrote on the issue and the inevitability of regulation:
November 12th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Greg Sterling, Jonathan Mendez, AJ Kohn, SMBinfo, shoppetweets and others. shoppetweets said: Privacy Regulation Is Really Really Here http://ow.ly/19WpTg [...]
December 1st, 2010 at 2:30 pm
[...] the US, the Obama administration is planning to establish a committee or “czar” to oversee potential new internet privacy rules. Republicans and [...]
December 21st, 2010 at 9:46 pm
[...] in 2011. Last month’s FTC privacy report, the Obama Administration’s plans for a Privacy Czar, do not track browser tools from Microsoft and Mozilla and now anti-tracking consumer survey data [...]
December 28th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
[...] be high on their lists of milestones and trends is privacy. The FTC and the Obama Administration have indicated that they’re going to take action to varying degrees. The lawyers and private litigants also circling with class actions, most recently filed against [...]