US Congress meets with industry experts to discuss privacy

The company representatives are members of an industry body called the Association for Interactive Media (AIM). AIM seeks to “promote and protect” internet business by arguing against regulatory threats and promoting consumer confidence.

The meeting coincides with a report by the US General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that claims the US government itself does not meet the privacy standards it is considering imposing on internet businesses in its federal agency web sites.

The standards in question are those found in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines. The four FTC criteria are general and much less onerous than the data protection laws that bind businesses in the European Union. The FTC guidelines include:

• Consumers should be informed of a web site’s data collection practices;
• Consumers must have options on whether and how their personal data is collected and used;
• Consumers must be allowed to view and contest the accuracy of data held; and
• The data must be secure from unauthorised use.

The General Accounting Office said that 97% of the Government's 65 web sites, including the FTC site, failed to meet all four criteria. 22% allowed marketing companies to deposit cookies in users' computers.