WASHINGTON-The Federal Trade Commission last week began looking into the various consumer questions-including privacy-and emerging technologies of the wireless Web by holding a day-and-a-half workshop.
“If people can be located every time they use wireless technology, is that a good thing?” asked FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky, noting that constitutional lawyer Laurence Tribe has said that “part of human dignity is the ability to hide.”
Pitofsky may not have anything to worry about, said Walter Mossberg, personal technology columnist of the Wall Street Journal.
“They [wireless data communications] will not work nearly as well as their manufacturers or service providers say they will,” said Mossberg.
The FTC has been studying the impact of the Web on privacy since 1996, but this is the first time it has focused on wireless Web activities.
“The mobile Web world introduces an extra degree of complexity …[and] dramatic expansion of the relationships that the public-policy community is going to have to examine,” said Daniel J. Weitzner, technology and society domain leader of the World Wide Web Consortium. The W3 Consortium is a standards body for the Web and has recently concluded a two-day conference on privacy in Munich, Germany, with the WAP Forum.
Privacy is so complicated that Mossberg thinks there should be a federal law passed that puts the customer in control of what information they receive and how and when they receive it.
“We need a federal law that is very tough on privacy that would work in both the wired and wireless worlds. [A federal law that is] enforceable by jail terms. … I am not talking about micromanaging each transaction, but [a law] that would allow the consumer to be in control,” said Mossberg.
This concerned a representative of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, who says his members are looking to the wireless Web as the next big thing.
“Clearly one of the main barriers would be imposing any sort of imposing overlay. … Industry self-regulation is the way to proceed,” said Adonis Hoffman, senior vice president and counsel of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.
“I would counsel strongly against any regulation or legislation, especially in a time when technology is developing. I think we have a tendency to over-regulate,” said J. Walter Hyer III, vice president and associate general counsel of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. He noted carriers are trying to find “a rational grown-up solution” before the government steps in.
“To a certain extent, it is a mistake to go overboard to protect the consumer. … There is a point where you go overboard in protecting them where it actually becomes a disservice in providing this content,” said David Moore, chief executive officer of 24/7 Media Inc.
Customers must have control, said Lawrence A. Ponemon, partner and global leader of compliance risk management of PricewaterhouseCoopers, L.L.P., because “this information is top of the land. This is as bad as it gets if it gets into the wrong hands.”
Carriers will need to implement better ways for customers to have control over their information and the use of it, said Alan Davidson, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.
“The kinds of the mechanisms that exist right now seem to be really unsatisfying to the consumer,” said Davidson.
Ponemon gelled all of these ideas together. ” I think this is a really good opportunity for self-regulation. … If you can’t come up with the right self-regulatory framework then you have to look to government,” he said.
Technology may be the hope for all of this, said Davidson, but another panelist from AT&T Corp.’s Research Labs cautioned that privacy measures must be built in from the beginning.
“Trying to build these things in from the beginning will be crucial. … It seems to me that if you do not put it in from the beginning [it is all the more difficult]. If you don’t put it in from the beginning, it will become an arms race, where we put it in but people look and find ways around it,” said Lorrie Faith Cranor, AT&T Labs senior technical staff member for research.
Protecting this information will require security measures being built in. “Hopefully we will not have to start hearing real horror stories before we start protecting this data,” said Davidson.
The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association presented its self-regulatory location privacy proposal that was recently submitted at the Federal Communications Commission.
The purpose of the CTIA location privacy proposal is to ” provide consumers with a familiar set of privacy principles and provide service providers with a safe harbor,” said Michael Altschul, CTIA vice president and general counsel.
CTIA’s proposal was an outgrowth of the FCC enhanced 911 mandates and the 911 bill passed in 1999 by Congress, said Altschul.
David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, latched onto Altschul’s presentation pointing out the positive aspects of CTIA’s proposal but noted that it was not really self-regulatory because it came out of government mandates.
“Whether we want to call it self-regulation or not, I think this is an example where government intervention has had a positive effect,” said Sobel.
In the online world, the FTC has advocated self-regulation with a legal framework as a backstop, said Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
In addition to privacy, another issue is making sure that information available on the wired Internet is also available on the wireless Web.
“It is sort of axiomatic on the Web today that when I put up information on the Web today, I don’t have to negotiate with anyone to make sure that information is available to anyone, but I am not sure it will be the same in this medium [wireless]. … We do have to pay careful attention … make sure we don’t create balkanization of different segments of the Web,” said Weitzner.
