As the Internet evolves and new data collection technologies emerge, privacy concerns are increasingly in the spotlight. Few doubt that these concerns are, in many cases, legitimate. The major point of contention is which institutions in society are best equipped to address the privacy challenges of the information age. While a number of privacy scholars point to stricter federal regulation as the answer, others are very skeptical of granting government a more expansive role in safeguarding sensitive information on the Internet.
In this week’s issue of
Advertising Age, Carolyn Homer and I have a guest column in which we discuss 
the role of market institutions in addressing privacy concerns:
A series of recent high-profile privacy gaffes involving internet firms such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook has spurred a public outcry for stronger privacy protections. Politicians in Congress have responded with a slew of blustering letters, hearings, and legislative threats. On July 19, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., introduced a sweeping privacy bill in the House of Representatives, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has pledged to introduce a similar bill in the Senate. This legislation would stifle the dynamic internet economy and targeted advertising while doing little to improve consumer privacy. Mr. Rush’s bill, titled the Best Practices Act, would give the Federal Trade Commission broad new powers to regulate nearly any organization that routinely collects even basic data about individuals, including phone numbers and email addresses. The bill would empower the FTC to dictate businesses’ data security practices, perform extensive compliance audits, and even restrict which kinds of information firms can collect and how long they can store it. This approach may sound sensible, but it ignores the crucial role of responsible data collection in the information age. Limiting such practices will impede e-commerce and endanger free internet content backed by advertising. The internet’s ubiquitous information sharing is a feature, not a bug.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.