Consumer protection on the Internet is getting a big boost from the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed Privacy Bill of Rights and following in the footsteps of the benefits of being anonymous on USENET newsgroups.
This would give you a right to know what information is collected about you when you are online. One of its goals is to beef up privacy preferences consumers already have, but many don’t know about.
Just like the Do Not Call laws preventing telemarketers from calling you, there is a Do Not Track feature already in your browser.
For example on Google, click on Tools, go to Safety, click Tracking Protection, and then click Enable.
The new guidelines would guarantee those preferences be honored by advertisers. As it is now, USENET has had a long history of protecting the rights and privacy of users by allowing them to access the thousands of newsgroups available in complete anonymity. Now, the internet is following
Right now, there are no federal Internet privacy laws on the books.
