Educating Consumers on Privacy? I’ll Settle for Educating Lawmakers.

One of the predictions I made last September in my attempt to be way ahead of the year-end predictions was that consumers and Web professionals would continue to not understand online privacy.

Tom Hespos’ column this week called for more consumer education, and I’m all for that, of course. But, I’m less concerned about educating consumers who think that everything they get online should be free, and more concerned with educating lawmakers who may begin to dramatically change the way we all do business in this medium – and soon.

Let’s face it; any Web user/consumer who blithely visits the usual range of sites and downloads music, streams video, or reads their local newspaper and some magazine or other online and thinks that, just because there are no direct costs involved, that it’s free, well, I’m sorry. But, that consumer won’t understand the basic quid pro quo of media any more than they’ll accept that “The Da Vinci Code” is a work of fiction. Consumers by and large don’t get it, and people won’t “get it” any more easily online than they ever have in traditional media.

The preponderance of Spybot and AdAware downloads is proof of this. Every time I read a columnist from a major newspaper describe how these programs are so great for ridding users of the invasive tracking tools, I write them and ask why these programs are so effective against the cookies that enable me to have a home page and subscribe to the New York Times online, but why they’re futile against the spyware that suddenly changed that home page from My Yahoo! to something called Zesty Search or Search Buddy, by companies I’ve never heard of with names like Ibis.

Certainly you’ve heard of Ibis. They’re behind a lot of the garbage you see online. I’d provide their phone number here, but none of us would ever get an answer. When I wrote a couple of months ago about some other companies like Ibis, I was bombarded by emails from readers who were dying to get their garbage off their hard drives. Spybot and AdAware had no effect, and it’s impossible to rid your computer of these insidious downloads via the usual add/delete programs function. They’re simply too clever.

See, some of the companies that have been lumped under the rubric “Spyware,” such as WhenU and Claria, are not the bad guys here. It’s very easy to take the tools from either of these companies off your hard drive, and their programs are provided with a very clear quid pro quo. The bad guys are companies that you’ve never heard of because they never show their faces. All they do is aggregate your surfing data and then sell it.

Try discussing this with the lawmakers who are about to do to tracking cookies what they tried to do to Direct Mail and Email, and you’ll get the glazed look of a dairy animal more often than not. Take a look at the Bill that actually passed in Utah. Within a week of it being signed into law, even its advocates were calling it a good “rough draft” of something that might work. That’s good of them to say, since this law would essentially make most types of session cookies illegal, make any rich media that obscures page copy illegal, and make many kinds of user tracking – even without the gathering of personally identifiable information (PII) – illegal.

This Bill is already signed into law in Utah. But, cooler heads are already beginning to prevail there.

However, there are Bills in the US House of Representatives that are potentially just as onerous. Mary Bono (R-CA) introduced HR 2929, which looks too much like the Utah legislation, less than a month ago, and it has already generated duplicate bills from her Senate colleagues Burns, Wyden and Boxer. Joe Barton (R-TX), the Chairman of the US House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, dressed down FTC Commissioner Mozell Thompson at a hearing on “Spyware” that Rep. Bono’s Bill catalyzed on April19, saying – in effect – “We’re going to pass legislation in this Congress that will get rid of all tracking software whether you like it or not.” Remember, this is a Texas Republican we’re talking about here. All of the sudden, we have an activist legislature!

Lawmakers, I think we can all agree, need to learn our business before they start changing it. What’s the best way for them to learn it? Those of you who run businesses that employ voters need to know how to reach your member of Congress and your Senators. Believe me, if your Congressional Member or either of your Senators is a member of the Committees that govern our industry, The House Committee on Energy and Commerce or The Senate Commerce Committee, they’ll be happy to hear from you. Don’t wait until the summer recess, when your legislator might be in the home office. It will probably be too late by then.

Take an hour to speak with the appropriate staff member, and let them know that they need to focus on Notice, Consent, and Uninstall. One Bill that’s been introduced does just that, which is why many people in our industry are fighting for Rep Jay Inslee’s (D-WA) proposed legislation. Yes, Rep. Inslee is from Microsoft’s Congressional District. But, his Bill is no paean to industry. Rep. Inslee’s Bill confronts spyware purveyors by requiring a computer user’s notice and consent before the execution of the software’s functions on his or her computer, including the collection of PII, modification of any computer settings (including one’s Homepage), and display of advertising. Rep Inslee’s bill is different from other Congressional spyware legislation because it recognizes the practical challenges of technology policy and gives consumers more realistic benefits with respect to notice and consent.

Take your kid to visit your Congressional office. It’ll provide a great lesson in civics for them. And it’ll provide a great lesson in our business for the staff member.

By Mark Naples
Courtesy of http://www.MediaPost.com