Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

So the FTC is holding a two-day workshop on Internet advertising in 
Washington this week:
http://ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/ehavioral/index.shtml

This is important because these workshops often, but not always, precede 
formal regulations. I'm speaking on the 9am panel if you're interested; 
it is webcast.

What's happened in the last few days is a bunch of announcements 
including a call for a "Do Not Target" list to be set up by the FTC that 
companies would be "required" to abide by upon pain of federal sanction:
http://www.cdt.org/privacy/20071031consumerprotectionsbehavioral.pdf

And some of the pro-regulatory/anti-advertising types are calling for a 
formal investigation of Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo's data 
collection practices, a new FTC task force to be created, and an inquiry 
into target marketing by Facebook and MySpace.com:
http://www.democraticmedia.org/files/pdf/FTCadprivacy.pdf

My own view (not exactly pro-regulatory) is here:
http://www.news.com/the-iconoclast/8301-13578_3-9809195-38.html

-Declan

Posted by Declan McCullagh on Nov 02, 2007 in category privacy

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