Privacy Vs. Data Collection

As wireless carriers continue to spruce up their Web sites for e-commerce, privacy advocates and federal legislators are looking at the potential for privacy violations as a result of Web data collection.

In January, two bills were introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives (www.house.gov) to address the issue. The first of these bills, the Consumer Internet Privacy Enhancement Act, would prohibit the collection of information that can be traced to specific consumers unless the Web-site operator notifies consumers and gives them an opportunity to limit the disclosure and use of the information. The second measure, the Consumer Online Privacy and Disclosure Act, would forbid Web-site operators to link IP addresses with personal information without a pre-existing business relationship with the consumers. The measure also would prohibit the tracking of Web-site visitors' Internet activities.

Around the time the two privacy bills were introduced, a privacy advocacy group criticized recently introduced Nortel Networks software designed to enable wireline and wireless carriers and other Internet businesses to collect information about online customers (www.nortel.com).

Junkbusters (www.junkbusters.com), a group that regularly consults with the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov), charged that capabilities within Nortel's personal Internet software suite enable ISPs and telcos to monitor customers' online activities.

“ISPs and telcos should not be monitoring where their customers go online to build up a profile of them for targeted advertising,” said Junkbusters president Jason Catlett in a press statement. “They are carriers, like the post office, and they have no right to spy on their customers.”

Nortel's Web site says that the personal Internet suite enables personalization of content-delivery services “by building a new layer of network intelligence that is aware of personal preferences and the attributes of content being delivered.” One of the products in the suite, the shasta personal content portal, can be used for wireless applications. A Nortel press release describes the product as “a content-delivery software engine that lets service providers control content access, steer subscribers and deliver self-provisioned services on a per-subscriber basis.”

Catlett's concern is that this kind of software will be used to collect personal information about consumers without their consent.

“There are plenty of marketing opportunities that use information on a consentual basis,” he said. “That's a fairer way of doing information collection.”

Nortel, however, contends that its personal Internet suite will be a useful tool for consumers, as well as carriers and content providers.

“It will enable Internet users for the first time to decide their personal privacy preferences with a single Internet service provider,” said Dominic Orr, Nortel Networks content networking unit president. “This empowers the user by giving them a choice to establish an individual privacy profile with an ISP, which has not been available before through a network infrastructure.”