Issue of Online Privacy Grows as Companies Track ‘Digital Footprints’

JEFFREY BROWN:

How much do advertisers know about you? And how can that information be used? That online DNA was the subject of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing today.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), North Dakota: Someone is gathering information about where you traveled and what you viewed, and that goes into a databank and can be sold or resold, and it becomes the process by which companies will use the information in which to target advertising directly to you.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The issue of online privacy has grown, along with the ability to access and collect data and the merging of online search and advertising. Congress is considering new federal privacy protections that can still allow Internet business to flourish.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN:

The questions that we discuss and raise today are not meant to suggest that advertising has no value as it relates to the Internet. Quite the contrary is the case.

But I think there are issues that are developing that are important issues, and those are issues about the invisibility of data collection; the collection of information about online users; the security of the information that has been collected; and the use of that information.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The committee heard from representatives of key Internet companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, who explained how Internet activity is tracked and the current self-policing protections in place.

JANE HORVATH, Google.com:

If you came onto our service to Google.com, and you weren't logged in, what we would collect would be your I.P. address…

SEN. BYRON DORGAN:

Right.

JANE HORVATH:

… the operating system that you're using…

SEN. BYRON DORGAN:

Correct.

JANE HORVATH:

… the browser type that you're using, the query that you have requested, and we would — if you don't have a cookie already, we'd have a cookie.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN:

That was my point. That was my point.

JANE HORVATH:

And that's all we would collect.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN:

Well, that's a lot.

JEFFREY BROWN:

A cookie is a kind of digital bread crumb placed on your computer's hard drive by search companies, Web sites, and marketers to track your online activity.

As you continue to surf the Web, the companies can try to target advertising directly to you based on prior activity and online interests.

At issue now is whether the Federal Trade Commission or Federal Communications Commission should enact mandatory rules on how information is gathered and used.

And we look into this further with two public policy advocates who testified at today's hearing: Leslie Harris, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.