Ad targeting laws could come this year

US-- Legislation to protect online privacy in the face of ad targeting technologies could be introduced to Congress later this year.

Congressman Rick Boucher, who chairs the House subcommittee on communications, technology and the internet, said the committee intends to come up with privacy legislation this year.

In a hearing focusing on consumer privacy on Thursday, Boucher said: “We see this measure as a driver of greater levels of internet uses such as e-commerce, not as a hindrance to them.”

The hearing looked at deep packet inspection – a technique that allows internet communications to be examined by a third party, as well as GPS tracking and the uses of digital set-top boxes.

Boucher described the potential of deep packet inspection to intrude on people's privacy as “nothing short of frightening”.

Dorothy Attwood, chief privacy officer of AT&T, and Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, were among those to testify.

Attwood said many internet users do not realise the extent to which their activity can be tracked in order to build profiles of them.

“As an industry… we must deploy next generation advertising techniques in tandem with next generation privacy innovations,” she said.

Harris called for the subcommittee to enact “baseline consumer privacy legislation” to cover both the offline and online worlds.

Last week's hearing limited itself to looking at the activities conducted by or in conjunction with network operators. It will be followed by a joint hearing with the subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection, at which representatives of internet companies will be asked to give evidence on their use of tracking technologies.

Author: Robert Bain

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