New FTC Group To Address Net Privacy Issues

Advertisers are closely watching the formation of a new government-advisory committee, which will determine how consumers access their personal data collected by e-commerce sites, and how that data is protected.
The Federal Trade Commission here, under chairman Robert Pitofsky, will use its 30-mem-
ber committee’s final recommendations to see if industry self-regulation is addressing concerns over privacy. This will occur when the FTC conducts another survey of Web sites in the next few months.
“We will look at the privacy policies themselves to see how well they are addressing the issues of notice, choice, access and security,” said David Medine, the FTC’s associate director for financial practices, who will chair the committee meetings.