‘Do Not Track’ Internet privacy initiative struggles to keep momentum

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/do-not-track-internet-privacy-initiative-struggles-to-keep-momentum/2012/11/27/38988a7a-38c7-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_story.html


Mark Wilson/GETTY IMAGES - Before the start of a Senate hearing about consumer online privacy in July, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), right, chats with Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC and FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz, center. Leibowitz embraced the idea of ‘do not track’ as key to the agency’s push for protecting data privacy.

The two-year-old drive to give consumers a simple way to block companies from tracking their behavior as they move across the Internet has faltered, say participants in the process who are struggling to reconcile privacy concerns with an advertising model that pays for many free Internet services.

The friction puts in peril the “Do Not Track” initiative that appeared to have widespread support at a White House event in February, when industry officials endorsed it in concept. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who also embraced the idea as central to the independent agency’s push for protecting personal data privacy, had predicted a deal by the end of the year.

But meetings of a key working committee have turned acrimonious in recent months, and a co-chair of the effort plans to step down Wednesday. Participants now say a deal remains months away, and some say it may take federal action to limit Internet tracking.

“This thing has stalled, and there has been deliberate obstructionism by some segments of the advertising industry, and there is great frustration because of this,” said John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog, one of several privacy advocates working on the issue.