High Quality
Open the downloaded document, and select print from the file menu (PDF reader required).
4—WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2008
tween competition and privacy,” he said: A company that becomes dominant in online advertising would have a“nearly complete picture” of users’ behavior, he said in a thinly veiled reference to the Google-Yahoo search deal.The FTC can’t say when it will complete its behavioral targeting principles, Parnes told DeMint, saying shedoubts they’ll still be in draft in a year. She said the FTC probably has authority to regulate targeting under section5 of the FTC Act. But DeMint, a former advertising executive, urged the FTC to focus first on actual harms. Thetargeting hubbub seems to be a “solution in search of a problem” as the industry “tries to cut these problems off before they occur,” he said. Business should reveal what it collects “so that the consumers become the regulatorsof the Internet,” DeMint said. Parnes agreed that self-regulation “at this point is more appropriate.”The hearing's timing was “uncanny,” given the presence on the Senate floor of the Foreign Intelligence Sur-veillance Act “compromise” bill (WID July 9 p1), said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., also an Intelligence Committeemember. The bill later passed the Senate. (See related report in this issue.) “I want to question the underlying ba-sis” of targeting, he said, comparing the practice to government snooping on individual library use. “The questionis how do we rein this in” before the Internet becomes “totally ubiquitous,” Nelson said. “How do we support our Constitution and protect our civil rights?”Dorgan hasn’t "the foggiest idea who’s tracking” his Web surfing, or if any company that is has enough“scruples” to resist selling his data to just anyone, he said. “One of the most important elements coming from thishearing is how little we understand,” he added. --
Greg Piper
*
*
*
*
*
The House Telecom Subcommittee will address deep-packet inspection in communications laws and poli-cies in a July 17 hearing, it said late Wednesday. The technology underlies the most controversial practices amongInternet service providers, from behavioral targeting to net neutrality and network management.
G
O
P
M
e
m
b
e
r
V
o
w
s
A
c
t
i
o
n
W
e
b
P
r
o
p
o
s
a
l
f
o
r
Ho
u
s
e
S
p
a
r
ks
R
e
v
o
l
t
Members on both sides of the aisle oppose proposed revisions to rules governing House members' Websites (WID July 9 p2).Several prominent Republicans Wednesday criticized a pending proposal to revise guidelines for how mem- bers post Internet content as an attempt at censorship. The proposal would “shut down what has emerged as a freeand helpfully uncensored pipeline of real-time information between the American people and their elected leaders,”said House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. House Franking Commission Chair Michael Capuano, D-Mass., who authored the proposal, said he was trying to modernize the rules while preventing commercialism.Boehner sent a strongly worded letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., criticizing the proposal for limiting postings only to services "approved" by the Administration Committee. He said membersshould be able to use services they believe "will best assist them in communicating with their constituents." Healso said members should be free to use any service on the same terms that anyone else could use them. "We mustencourage, not restrict the free and open flow of uncensored information between the American people and their elected leaders over the Internet," Boehner said.An alert by Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, galvanized "social media" interests. By 11:59 p.m. Tues-day, a site built by Aaron Brazell, a Baltimore social-media consultant, had collected a list of over 40 blog posts, with authors from across the political spectrum, decrying Capuano’s proposal. Brazell told
Washington Internet Daily
that "what happened last night was not partisan,” and said his motivation came from a belief
Add a Comment