Facebook, Attorneys General Partner for Digital Data Education Campaign

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Facebook and 19 attorneys general have teamed up to create a new online safety campaign, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said during the annual National Association of Attorneys General Presidential Initiative Summit. Gansler leads NAAG. The summit included panels featuring former and current FTC officials, consumer privacy advocates and members of the online consumer data industry.

The campaign will give teens and their parents resources -- including tip sheets and state-specific PSAs -- to help them better manage their privacy on Facebook and, more generally, online, according to a release announcing the initiative. “We hope this campaign will encourage consumers to closely manage their privacy and these tools and tips will help provide a safer online experience,” Gansler said in a statement. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a statement that the company looks forward to working with Gansler and the other attorneys general “to ensure that young people make smart, safe and responsible choices online."

The partnership shows a lack of concern for consumer privacy, Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said in a statement. “Gansler appears to be more interested friending Mark Zuckerberg than working to protect teen privacy on Facebook,” he said, criticizing the company for “its data collection and ad targeting” practices. “Facebook is a complex and deliberately ever-expanding data collection octopus,” and this “feel good effort fails to deliver what parents, teens and other Facebook users require: strong privacy safeguards giving them real control over their data,” he said.

"Data is neither good nor bad,” said Jennifer Barrett Glasgow, Acxiom chief privacy officer. It’s important that any attempts to regulate the big-data industry consider how data about consumers are actually used. “I would encourage more study groups, more working groups that have collaboration of advocates, academics, regulators and industry,” she said. Regulators and industry members can agree that certain uses of consumer data should be off limits, she continued. “The challenge, I think, is defining what those things are.” Glasgow said there are certain policy areas where “law does need to change over time,” including the FCRA, which could be updated to reflect technological changes.

Do Not Track (DNT) is very likely to become a reality, former FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said during a conference address. It could become a reality through industry self-regulation, “or it could become a reality through bipartisan legislation,” he continued. Online privacy is “generally an area with a lot of bipartisan support within the commission” and a topic that has bipartisan support in Congress, he said. “Companies that are resisting DNT are doing so at their own peril.” Leibowitz commended the attorneys general for getting involved in online privacy. “It is critical that all of us work together on privacy issues,” he said.

There is “always” pressure on Congress to enact laws about online privacy, said Joseph Wender, legislative director for Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “Consumers want privacy. They think it’s a right,” he said. Markey and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, will reintroduce their Do Not Track Kids Act during this session, Wender said. Protecting children’s privacy online is “something that everybody can agree on,” he said. “Right now, a 13-year-old has the same protections online as a 30-year-old. That doesn’t seem quite right.”

Wender pointed to COPPA as a technology-neutral law. Because the commission had the flexibility to update the rule, “the FTC made a good law even better” through its recent updates, he said. When legislating, “you have to ensure that you're doing it in a way that’s technologically neutral,” he continued. Steve Ruckman, director of the Maryland Attorney General’s Privacy Division, said COPPA has “a high enough level of generality that it can change with the times."

It’s important that the FTC and attorneys general “not stand on the sidelines,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Good models emerge” when the varying offices pursue consumer protection and online privacy in various ways, but “the whole exercise stops if you don’t commit to pursue your legal authorities,” he said. Companies should respect user privacy choices when they change their data collection and sharing policies, Rotenberg said. Rather than asking the user to reaffirm his privacy choices, “the change in business practices has to respect the privacy policies that users chose,” he said. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, echoed Rotenberg’s sentiment during a later panel. It should be the responsibility of industry members “to create technological solutions that favor the consumer,” he said. “The onus should be on industry, not on the consumer.”