Saturday, November 13, 2010
President Obama to announce creation of 'internet czar' position to help protect consumers privacy.
Tired of Mark Zuckerberg knowing your every move?
Soon, the Obama administration will have a czar for that.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the President will introduce a more aggressive approach to policing the world wide web and a new position to head up the effort.
The battle over more government control of the Internet has been raging for years, as civil liberties groups have expressed concern over government intervention in private-sector computers.
But with the increasing use of personal information to drive Internet advertising, the Obama administration appears ready to at least tackle what has been a politically difficult problem, the Journal said.
The United States also lags behind other countries, including Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom that have laws protecting consumer privacies.
"Better late than never," Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) told the Journal. "I am glad more and more folks, in the government and otherwise, are beginning to realize that there is a war against privacy."
The new policy, which comes on the recommendation of a U.S. Commerce Department report, would be a large-scale change in a relatively unregulated web. Currently, advertisers and companies are largely expected to regulate themselves.
"We believe we are living up to consumer-privacy expectations and are very advanced in privacy protections and innovation," Mike Zaneis, senior vice president at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, told the Journal.
Earlier this month, Google settled a class-action lawsuit after users sued when they said their privacy rights were violated with a new Google product, Google Buzz.
Facebook, which is also the target of many consumer advocates, is set to launch its own email next week, giving them perhaps more access to consumer data.
This isn't the first time that the government has stepped in to protect private and public interests on the internet.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have used cybersecurity advisors to help the government fend off internet attacks on highly vunerable banking, energy and communications systems.
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