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<div class="timestamp">March 29, 2012</div>
<h1>Conflict Over How Open ‘Do Not Track’ Talks Will Be</h1>
<span><h6 class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/edward_wyatt/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Edward Wyatt" class="meta-per">EDWARD WYATT</a> and <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/tanzina_vega/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Tanzina Vega" class="meta-per">TANZINA VEGA</a></h6>
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WASHINGTON — Technology companies want to talk with the government about
protecting privacy on the Internet. They just want those talks to be
private. </p>
<p>
Representatives of advertising companies, Internet sites and technology
companies told a House subcommittee on Thursday that they thought
Internet privacy policies, including Do Not Track options, should be
created through an “open and transparent” process, as two government
agencies have recommended. </p>
<p>
But openness is relative. “If this process takes the form of a public
discussion, industry participants will be looking over their shoulders
or sitting on their hands instead of offering bold ideas for workable
solutions,” said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for
Competitive Technology, a trade association of software, hardware and
technology consulting companies. </p>
<p>
The Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which are
encouraging companies to be more open with consumers about their privacy
policies, say that any such talks should be accessible to, if not
include, Internet users. </p>
<p>
“We don’t think there is any substitute for openness and transparency,”
Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary for communication and
information at the Commerce Department, told the subcommittee, a part of
the House Energy and Commerce Committee. </p>
<p>
Lawyers for companies are free to talk among themselves about the best
practices in protecting consumer privacy, he said, but to give consumers
faith in the process, “the sessions we conduct will be open and
transparent.” </p>
<p>
The hearing on consumer privacy, the fifth by the House panel, comes
after the recent release by the White House and the F.T.C. of
recommendations for how to protect personal data that individuals leave
behind when they surf the Internet. </p>
<p>
As Internet privacy has become a bigger issue in Washington, technology
companies have been increasing their lobbying. Google and Facebook
recently bolstered their lobbying teams. Google hired Susan Molinari, a
former New York congresswoman. Facebook hired Greg Maurer, a former aide
to House Speaker John Boehner. </p>
<p>
Both companies, along with others, are likely to be engaged in the
coming months with the trade commission, which called this week for
legislation to regulate data brokers, companies that buy and sell
personal data to help build online profiles of consumers. Technology
companies fear that the F.T.C. might be drafting a definition of data
brokers that is so broad it includes almost any company that collects
user information online. </p>
<p>
Jon Leibowitz, the F.T.C.’s chairman, also got the industry’s attention
when he said this week that if companies could not create robust Do Not
Track policies themselves, he would favor legislation requiring it.
</p>
<p>
Some members of Congress are not so sure. </p>
<p>
“Before we do any possible harm to the Internet, we need to understand
what harm is actually being done to consumers,” Representative Mary Bono
Mack, a California Republican and subcommittee chairwoman, said at the
hearing. “Where is the public outcry for legislation? Today, I’m simply
not hearing it. I haven’t gotten a single letter from anyone back home
urging me to pass a privacy bill.” </p>
<p>
The idea of a law requiring companies to permit consumers to forbid
tracking them online has upset several technology companies as well.
When the White House presented its privacy framework in February, an
online advertising alliance said it would support adding a Do Not Track
option to all browsers by the end of 2012. </p>
<p>
When the trade commission released its report on Monday, however,
members of the group, the Digital Advertising Alliance, said they were
surprised by Mr. Leibowitz’s comments about Do Not Track legislation. He
said the commission took Do Not Track to mean not collecting any data
from consumers. </p>
<p>
The advertising group, however, defines it as forbidding the serving of
targeted ads to individuals but not prohibiting the collection of data.
</p>
<p>
“That is not what was agreed to,” Linda A. Woolley, executive vice
president of the Direct Marketing Association, a member of the digital
alliance, said Thursday in an interview. She said that was like moving
the goal posts. </p>
<p>
Some technology companies are continuing to head down the path of Do Not
Track, at a speed far more rapid than the usual pace of Congressional
legislation. On Thursday, Yahoo said that it would put a Do Not Track
option on its sites that would tell its network sites that a user did
not want to be tracked. </p>
<p>
Users who turn on the Do Not Track option in their browsers and visit a
Yahoo Web site will not see targeted ads, the company said, but the site
will collect user data. The announcement follows similar moves by
companies that make browsers, including Mozilla, the maker of Firefox,
to include a Do Not Track mechanism in their privacy settings. </p>
<div class="authorIdentification">
<p>Edward Wyatt reported from Washington and Tanzina Vega from New York.</p> </div>
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