Questions Asked by the FTC in the Privacy Report - Part II

In last week's Privacy Report , the Federal Trade Commission posed a series of questions, soliciting comment and discussion from stakeholders to better inform its final report on the subject, due to be issued mid-2011.

We reviewed some of the questions in our December 2 post.   Here are some of the other questions -- parties with significant interest in these issues should pay close attention to these questions and participate by filing a comment with the FTC.   

Not all the FTC's questions are included here.  For the full list of questions, see the Privacy Report and go to Appendix A.

• Is the list of proposed "commonly accepted practices" set forth in the Report (see page 52) too broad or too narrow?
• Are there practices that should be considered "commonly accepted" in some business contexts but not in others?
• What types of first-party marketing should be considered "commonly accepted practices?"
• Even if first-party marketing in general may be a commonly accepted practice, should consumers be given a choice before sensitive data is used for such marketing?
• Should first-party marketing be limited to the context in which the data are collected from the consumer?
• Should marketing to consumers by commonly-branded affiliates be considered first-party marketing?
• How should the proposed framework handle the practice of data "enhancement," whereby a company obtains data about its customers from other sources, both online and offline, to enrich its databases.  Should companies provide choice about this practice?
• Under what circumstances (if any) is it appropriate to offer choice as a "take it or leave it" proposition, whereby a consumer's use of a website, product, or service constitutes consent to the company's information practices?
• What types of disclosures and consent mechanisms would be most effective to inform consumers about the trade-offs they make when they share their data in exchange for services?
• What additional consumer protection measures, such as enhanced consent or heightened restrictions, are appropriate for the use of deep packet inspection?
• Is it feasible for data brokers to provide a standardized consumer choice mechanism and what would be the benefits of such a mechanism?

Next:   Questions on "Do-Not-Track"

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