EBay, Amazon Privacy Policies Under Fire

Officials at Junkbusters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center held a joint news conference Tuesday morning in which they discussed their decisions to file separate complaints with the Federal Trade Commission against eBay and Amazon.com because of privacy concerns.

Green Brook, New Jersey-based Junkbusters filed a complaint raising questions about eBay's policies; Washington-based EPIC filed a complaint about Amazon.com.

Creating Confusion

In the new conference, Junkbusters President Jason Catlett said he has problems with eBay's "two-tiered" privacy policy, which he called deceptive. "The short, cheery version [of the policy] which is presented to the visitor is not representative of the longer more detailed version," he said.

Catlett said that in its privacy policy's summary, eBay says it will turn over personal data to outside agencies only when absolutely necessary. However, the more detailed policy states that eBay will turn over such information at its discretion and without a warrant or subpoena, Catlett said.

He also said that eBay does not tell users that their e-mail addresses might be used by others to spam them and that despite efforts to protect data online at the Web site, there is a substantial risk to any private and financial information registered on eBay.

COPPA Concerns

Following Catlett's presentation, EPIC deputy counsel Chris Hoofnagle charged that Amazon.com is in violation of the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. Hoofnagle said that the toy section of Amazon.com constitutes a Web site designed to attract children, which would put it under jurisdiction of COPPA.

EPIC charged in the complaint that children under age 13 can enter private information on the site that can then be viewed by others. He questioned an apparent lack of parental control over the information some children are providing, such as their names, addresses, and ages.

EPIC charged that Amazon could and should do a better job of shielding children's information under COPPA.

Hoofnagle said a number of other large retailers who sell toys conduct practices similar to Amazon's, but EPIC chose to target the company because of its leadership role in online retailing.

"Amazon is creating a race to the bottom," Hoofnagle said. In order to compete with Amazon, other retailers must adopt its practices. Forcing Amazon to change those practices will improve compliance across the Web, he said.

Representatives of eBay and Amazon were allowed to listen in to this morning's news conference via telephone but were prevented from speaking by the ground rules of the event. They could not be reached immediately for comment.