The Administration’s Privacy “White Paper” now has been released and is available here. A fuller analysis will follow, but it is useful to note that the Administration is calling for multistakeholder processes to develop enforceable codes of conduct, building on the FTC’s enforcement expertise. It also is calling for the promotion of international interoperability with mutual recognition and an international role for the multistakeholder processes and codes of conduct. To give the codes of conduct teeth, the Administration is calling for codification of a Privacy Bill of Rights that will give the FTC direct enforcement authority and that will provide “legal certainty” through enforcement safe harbors, while preserving existing federal privacy laws. There is also a call for a national standard for secuirty breach notiifcation.
Along with the Administration’s annoucement, the Digital Advertising Alliance, a consortium of advertising agencies and ad networks, also announced that it “will immediately begin work to add browser-based header signals to the set of tools by which consumers can express their preferences under the DAA Principles. The DAA expects that such functionality will be implemented within nine months.” Thus, the DAA members have committed to respect “Do Not Track” instructions with respect to targeted advertising implemented through browser settings.