Will the Kerry/McCain bill Protect Consumer Privacy?-Part 1

Stu Ingis and I don't generally agree.  Mr. Ingis is the DC attorney representing the Direct Marketing Assn, the Interactive Ad Bureau and the new Digital Ad Alliance promoting self-regulation.  But Mr. Ingis and I, it appears, hold similar views on the real-world impact of the new privacy bill just introduced by Senators Kerry and McCain.  Mediapost reports that Mr. Ingis believes that the bill  "largely allows current practices to continue."  Ad Age also reports that " In many ways, the bill codifies much of the current practice already under way between consumers and online businesses..."

From the first time I saw the bill, before the end of last year, it was clear that it failed to address the range of contemporary data collection, profiling and targeting practices found throughout the digital landscape.  Sen. Kerry's staff have been extraordinarily cordial (and have Mr. McCain's when they came onboard recently).  But the bill has so many loopholes--including one to please Facebook--that it will not really help consumers and citizens.  We can't permit the data privacy status quo.  A bill must include strong definitions of sensitive information that allows consumers control over how online marketing for financial and health services, for example, actually operate on the web and mobile devices (and ethnicity/racial data should be included).  The bill includes exemptions for companies having a business relationship with a site--that will permit multiple data collection from Facebook and other marketers using social "plug-ins" as part of their syndicated data gathering model; the FTC should define what is considered personally identifable--versus what we have in the bill that will likely allow the growing number of behavioral targeting warehouses and outside databases to freely create profiles behind the current "it's not personal info" smokescreen; a bill should not--as Kerry/McCain does--exempt a host of data collection and targeting related practices involving web optimization and other commonly used techniques;  and no bill should embrace the outmoded notion that there's any real distinction between so-called "First" and "Third" party sites.  In today's mix and match your data real-time/ad exchange/demand side platform/ world, those distinctions only serve to condone practices that require sensible safeguards.

We will be back with more.