Analytics

The International Association of Privacy Professionals hosted its annual Privacy Academy, at which one panel, “Data Brokers Demystified,” specifically focused on regulation of the data-broker industry.  The panelists included Janis Kestenbaum from the Federal Trade Commission, Jennifer Glasgow from Acxiom, and Pam Dixon from the World Privacy Forum.  Emilio Cividanes from Venable also participated.

Major Conclusions of the FTC Report (Janis Kestenbaum)

  • Data brokers operate with a fundamental lack of transparency.  They engage in extensive collection of information about nearly every US consumer, profiles of which are composed of billions of data elements.
  • Much data collection occurs without consumer awareness and uses a wide variety of online and offline sources, such as social networks, blogs, individual purchases and transactions with retailers, state and federal governments, events requiring registration, and magazine subscriptions.
  • The practice of “onboarding”–where offline data is onboarded onto an online cookie and is used to market to consumers online–is increasingly common.
  • Some data collected is sensitive, but even non-sensitive data is sometimes used to make “sensitive inferences” about (for example) health status, income, education, ethnicity, religion, and political ideology.  Consumers are often segmented into “clusters” based on these inferred characteristics.
  • For regulators, some of these clusters are concerning.  For example, one cluster is entitled “Urban Scramble” and contains high concentrations of low-income ethnic minorities.
  • Congress should create a centralized portal where consumers can go online and access individual data brokers’ websites to opt out and access and correct their information.  For consumer-facing entities, like retailers, consumers must be given some kind of choice before data is sold to a data broker, and when that data is sensitive, the choice should be in the form of an opt in.
    Continue Reading IAPP Privacy Academy: “Data Brokers Demystified”

As we have previously reported, in less than two weeks the FTC will host its anticipated workshop on big data and discrimination.  Today the FTC announced a full agenda and panelists for the September 15th event, “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?” which will take place in Washington, D.C., at the Constitution Center.  The workshop is open to the public, and registration begins at 8 a.m.  The following provides a full schedule of speakers and panels.
Continue Reading Schedule of Panelists for FTC’s Upcoming Big Data & Discrimination Workshop

Last Friday, the FTC announced an agenda for its upcoming workshop, “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?” which will take place on Monday, Sept. 15, starting at 8:00 a.m.  As we’ve previously reported, the workshop will build on recent efforts by the FTC and other government agencies to understand how new technologies affect the economy, government, and society, and the implications on individual privacy.  In particular, while there has been much recognition for the value of big data in revolutionizing consumer services and generally enabling “non‐obvious, unexpectedly powerful uses” of information, there has been parallel focus on the extent to which practices and outcomes facilitated by big-data analytics could have discriminatory effects on protected communities.

The workshop will explore the use of big data and its impact on consumers, including low-income and underserved consumers, and will host the following panel discussions:

  • Assessing the Current Environment.  Examine current uses of big data in various contexts and how these uses impact consumers.
  • What’s on the Horizon with Big Data?  Explore potential uses of big data and possible benefits and harms for particular populations of consumers.
  • Surveying the Legal Landscape.  Review anti-discrimination and consumer-protection laws and discuss how they may apply to the use of big data, and whether there may be gaps in the law.
  • Mapping the Path Forward.  Consider best practices for the use of big data to protect consumers.

The FTC hopes that the workshop will build on the dialogue raised in its Spring Privacy Seminar Series held from February through May, which addressed mobile-device tracking, data brokers and predictive scoring, and consumer generated and controlled health data.  The workshop will convene academic experts, business representatives, industry leaders, and consumer advocates, and will be open to the general public. In advance of the workshop, the FTC has invited the public to file comments, reports, and original research on the proposed topics. The deadline to submit pre-workshop comments is August 15. Following the workshop on September 15, the comment period will remain open until October 15.

The workshop comes on the heels of the White House’s anticipated report on big data released in May, which outlined the administration’s priorities in protecting privacy and data security in an era of big data.  With an entire section dedicated to “Big Data and Discrimination,” the report warned that big data “could enable new forms of discrimination and predatory practices.”  Chiefly focusing on the use of information, the report showed concern about using data to discriminate against vulnerable groups.  Specifically, the report stated that “the ability to segment the population and to stratify consumer experiences so seamlessly as to be almost undetectable demands greater review, especially when it comes to the practice of differential pricing and other potentially discriminatory practices.” 
Continue Reading The FTC’s Agenda to Tackle Big Data and Discrimination

In an interview with ClickZ, the FTC’s incoming chief technologist, Edward Felten, provides insight into the scope of the Commission’s proposed “Do Not Track” mechanism and how compliance could be enforced.  Felten makes three key points:  

  • The proposed mechanism applies only to third-party tracking for behavioral advertising.  It

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Continue Reading FTC’s Chief Technologist Explains “Do Not Track”

Just two days after the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection announced that the agency would not tolerate an “arms race” aimed at developing technologies that subvert user choice regarding online tracking, two firms accused of employing such technologies agreed to settle lawsuits against them.  Quantcast and Clearspring–which provide web analytics and certain functionality to consumer-facing websites–were named in several class action complaints this summer.  The suits alleged that the companies used “Flash cookies” (i.e., local shared objects stored in the memory of Adobe’s Flash Player plug-in) to track user activity on websites where Quantcast and Clearspring provide their services.  The publishers of some of those sites were also named in the suits.  

Although the use of traditional “HTTP” cookies for tracking has become so commonplace as to be relatively uncontroversial, Flash cookies have been criticized because they are unaffected by browser privacy settings.  Moreover, as noted by researchers at UC-Berkeley, Flash cookies can be used to re-create or “respawn” browser cookies after a user deletes the latter.  The plaintiffs in the Quantcast and Clearspring cases seized on these distinctive qualities in asserting that the defendants used Flash cookies to “circumvent” users’ privacy settings.  The complaints included claims under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, and various state laws.Continue Reading Quantcast, Clearspring Agree to Settle “Flash Cookies” Suits