Internet privacy policy is a very important issue and I am glad our Government is ready to take on the challenging job of regulating Internet commerce. E-commerce has take on a whole new empire of selling personal information collected by business. These businesses, such as CVS, DoubbleClik.
com, and Amazon.com, are not only "stealing" your personal information but they are also selling it to anyone who will pay the hefty sum. Up until this point, Internet firms have been able to self-regulate themselves. This has to be changed. The FTC must place strict regulations on privacy policies.
Commissioner, I strongly believe that if the FTC does not take immediate action all electronic information is in jeopardy of being "stolen." First and for most I advocate for all Internet web sites to post a clearly defined privacy policy. This privacy policy would explicitly define what information is being recorded, viewed, or sold. Furthermore, it should state what, if any, information is recorded in the cookie placed on my computer. The user should agree upon this statement before viewing the site. This will help to make consumers aware of the Internet site's privacy policy; it will also limit the liability that the Internet site has over what it is doing with the information.
Another feature that would help curb the "stealing" of information is to ask the consumer for the specific information. This would give the customer the option to give certain information to a specific web-site and it would put Internet based companies on the same page with traditional businesses. A customer should have the right to choose to be on the mailing list. E-mail address sales should be deemed illegal except under certain circumstances.
The exception would be that if a web site such as Amazon.com asks in the form of a yes or no, reply question if their customer would like to be placed on their advertisers e-mailing list. Privacy policies must also dictate what can and can not be tracked, recorded or sold by companies. Medical records, perception records, driving records, any social security number, credit records, bank records, criminal records, and or buy pattern information can not be sold by anyone.
This information is not sold in paper copies to anyone; many of them are confidential documents that are illegal to sell in the first place. Information that tracks buying habits for more than 6 months should not be stored on a customer's personal computer in the form of a cookie. This will help to ensure that business do not have enough concrete buying information to sell. Information that should not be recorded is a very gray area at this point and I feel that it is an issue that needs more developing. The laws that rule over Internet privacy policies must be strict. If the laws are lax there will be countless attempts at working the loopholes.
Commissioner I hope that you agree with my points and bring them up with the FTC. Our privacy is at stake and with out proper regulation the whole world might know that you like the "advanced formula Preparation-H." Word Count: 518
