From House Energy and Commerce:
Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectationsâ€
Publications
June 16, 2009The Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection will hold a joint hearing titled, “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectations” on Thursday, June 18, 2009, in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing will examine the potential privacy implications of behavioral advertising.
INVITED WITNESSES:
* Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy
* Scott Cleland, President, Precursor LLC
* Charles D. Curran, Executive Director, Network Advertising Initiative
* Christopher M. Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
* Edward W. Felten, Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs, Princeton University
* Anne Toth, Vice President of Policy, Head of Privacy, Yahoo! Inc.
* Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google Inc.WHEN: 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 18
WHERE: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building
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This is the second in a series of hearings on the subject of behavioral advertising. I’ll predict that the Democrats will praise Google, the Republicans will criticize them, and nobody will pay much notice to Yahoo.
I only know four of the six personally, I need to get out more.
Why do you think that the Democrats will praise Google? I certainly hope that they will stick to their principles and not do so. As I’ve pointed out a number of times, its merger with DoubleClick means that Google is the #1 source of spyware tracking cookies on the Web. Google also reads GMail users’ mail and uses it to compile dossiers that are in turn used to target advertising at them. And recently, it’s been using its “Google Analytics” scripts, which appear on far too many Web sites throughout the Net, to track users as well. (I recommend that my customers block Google Analytics to prevent this.)
I hope that there is not so much corruption in DC that Google, by greasing palms, can get away with such obvious malfeasance.
Based on prior experience, Eshoo certainly will praise Google and rip into Scott Cleland. Other Democrats are independent, such as Bart Stupak. But we’ll see, the hearing is tomorrow.
Google is in Eshoo’s district, so she will likely have a bias. But the other Democrats hopefully will not be….
Hi Richard,
I tried to listen to the hearing but somehow it didn’t really work out on my computer. So, is there somewhere a transcript? If not, it would be great if you could sum up the event for “us”.
Has anybody mentioned any hard-fact studies or was it the usual political stuff?
Best!
Written statements are now posted at the Committee’s web site (click link in article) but I don’t see any audio or video. I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you what was actually said.