U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller recently wrote to the head of the Federal Trade Commission saying that his agency needs to do more to increase consumers' privacy protections online.
Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, recently wrote to FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz asking his agency become more involved in improving voluntary Do Not Track standards, according to a report from
Broadcasting and Cable. He encouraged the agency to begin working with the World Wide Web Consortium to develop better voluntary DNT protocols.
The senator also pointed out that while many Web browser developers are now including DNT standards to their programs, but companies are not under any legal obligation to adhere to them, the report said. In many cases, those that do honor DNT requests by users can even find ways around those protections, further endangering consumers' privacy.
Eduard Goodman, the chief privacy officer for
Identity Theft 911, writes a blog about the concerns consumers may run into when simply browsing the Web, and what they can do to increase their protections.
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