Keynote Speaker: Julie Brill, Federal Trade Commissioner
Panelists: Ed Felten (Chief Technology Officer, Federal Trade Commission), Jim Steyer (Founder and CEO, Common Sense Media), Peter Swire (Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress, professor of law at Ohio State University), Chris Wolf (Partner, Hogan Lovells, LLC, Co-Director, Future Privacy Forum)
Moderator: Neera Tanden, Chief Operating Officer at @AmProg
* Tanden, Chief Operating Officer at @AmProg, opens with pros and cons of legislative, private sector approaches to tracking.
* Commissioner Brill steps to the podium. References Tom Hanks’ @Yale commencement. “Do not turn off your cell phones”, life via Internet.
* Brill touches on American, global web progress and “cultural retreat”. Grocery shopping, toppling of dictatorships. All related to tracking.
* Brill argues that it is unreasonable to expect consumers to understand the scope of privacy law while devices tempt with one box of consent.
* With data sophistication comes breaches of privacy, observance of consumers by industries. Questions manipulation, proposed protection plan.
* Brill states that “obvious disclosure”, such as shipping companies’ use of customer addresses by consent, is the FTC’s next frontier.
* @FEDgov set to propose “Do Not Track” plan, allowing consumers to adjust breadth of data sharing. Companies must honor by regulation.
* “We want to present a rich online environment that allows users to set their own preferences, make their own choices.” - Commissioner Brill
* Question from USC attendee asks about device-specific privacy protections. Brill responds: individual preferences made, must be persistent.
* Panel begins discussion of ‘off/on’ switch private browsing in IE9, Mozilla Firefox, browser-based tracking. Site compliance a new focus.
* Moderator Tanden introduces Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media. Experience at Stanford, his children incite importance of privacy.
* “There should be no behavioral marketing from kids, an ‘eraser’ button to clear mistaken activity. Opt-in over opt-out preferences.”
* Transparency a central focus of today’s panel, seen as part of the solution to tracking on a regulatory, legislative scale.
* Steyer notes the speed of digital development, self-regulation by society. Is it changing the way children are raised and protected?
* Digital marketing bill of rights (geolocation, GPS) also proposed by Common Sense Media, FTC, advocates of preference-based privacy.
* Panelists Chris Wolf, Peter Swire discuss the ability of search engines to ‘unlink’ searched content after 90 days, cyclical results.
* “If you think [laws] written in 1995 or 1998 reflect current trends, think again. We need new legislation, even globally,” Steyer explains.
* Panel turns to recent events related to #cyberbullying, First Amendment of corporations, families.
* Question of international #law angle overseas comes from German professor. Felten responds, “It’s rare to get 100% compliance anywhere.”
* Next question references the Netherlands, “LOLcats” meme sites, and whether invasive tracking continues across all content.
* Next question regards parenting, disconnection. Steyer responds that education of web protection, accessible privacy law is central.
* Lawsuits of Spain versus Google, Italy where an autofill provision was objected being discussed, as well as “right to be forgotten” button.
* “At the end of the day, this is a negotiating process between the public, FTC, corporations,” Steyer says, closing today’s @AmProg forum.
Follow: @AmProgress, #CAPPrivacy
Photo via Center for American Progress - Flickr
