COPPA, Kids, Cookies & Chat Rooms: We're from the Government and We're Here to Protect Your Children
2001; Routledge; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0882-3383
Autores Tópico(s)Intellectual Property Rights and Media
ResumoI. ON-LINE PRIVACY: THE DIGITAL PERFECT STORM? From the founding of the United States to the present, Americans have jealously guarded their natural right to privacy. How times have changed. Today, we no longer concerned with our right to privacy against British troops in our homes, but our on-line rights to privacy from cookies in our personal computers--particularly as these rights relate to our children. (1) High-profile lawsuits against Doubleclick.com, (2) Amazon.com, (3) Netscape and AOL, (4) Yahoo.com, (5) RealPlayer (6) and disturbing new revelations about the FBI's 'Carnivore' software, that monitors our e-mail, (7) fanning the pyres of concerns among consumers, courts and Congress alike. Forrester Research found that consumers are most concerned about how much personal information they give and who sees it. (8) A Business Week poll found that a majority of those polled expressed a rising tide of concern about on-line privacy and favored more legislation to regulate how personal information is collected and used. (9) A 1999 study by AT&T, Harvard and MIT found that: Users were almost as willing to provide a Web site with their email address as they were to name their favorite snack or TV show, the study found, while they consider phone numbers more private than any personal information other than credit card and social security numbers. They were less likely to provide information about themselves that could be shared for marketing purposes, and the vast majority were unwilling to share any information that would identify their children by name, age or address. (10) Professor Mary J. Culnan, Director of the Georgetown University Internet Privacy Policy Study found that 98% of the Top 100 websites collected at least one type of personal identifying information (e.g. name, e-mail address, postal address), 75% collected at least one type of demographic information (e.g., gender, preferences, Zip code) and 74% of the sites collected both personal identifying and demographic information. (11) Federal and state legislators, responding to alarmed constituents, seemingly trying to outdo each other in introducing new on-line privacy legislation. At the state level, governors, attorneys general and key legislators introducing initiatives and policies to stop the spread of personal, government, financial, medical and Internet records. (12) Our fundamental right of privacy has been almost completely eroded by rapid advances in computers, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. (13) During the 106th Congress alone, the following federal legislation was introduced: The Online Privacy Protection Act (14) (Senate Bill 809, Burns), Electronic Rights for the 21st Century Act (15) (Senate Bill 854, Leahy), The Electronic Privacy Bill of Rights Act (16) (House Bill 3321, Markey), The Secure Online Communication Enforcement Act (17) (Senate Bill 2063, Torriceli), The Consumer Privacy Protection Act (18) (Senate Bill 2606, Hollings), The Internet Security Act (19) (Senate Bill 2430, Leahy) and The Internet Integrity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (20) (Senate Bill 2448, Hatch). People confused--they're not sure, but they think somebody is watching them without telling them, and they're ticked, notes attorney John Kamp, who represents the Internet Advertising Bureau. (21) Web site operators, under increasing pressure and scrutiny from both state and federal regulators, have formed self-regulatory alliances such as the Internet Advertising Bureau (22) and privacy 'seal' entities such as Trust-e.com (23) to allay consumers' concerns and the threat of more litigation and government regulation. II. THE FTC'S ROLE IN ENFORCING THE COPPA At the eye of the on-line privacy storm is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). …
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