Consumer Groups Launch Net Privacy Guide

A group of consumer privacy groups Tuesday launched an online guide for protecting security and privacy on the Internet, hoping to reach consumers making purchases online as the busy holiday shopping season comes to a close.

The Web site ConsumerPrivacyGuide.org offers tips on how to read and understand the privacy policies of online retailers and other Web sites that collect information about visitors. It also offers how-to guides for getting rid of "cookies," the small tags that Web sites leave on users' hard drives to track their preferences and other information the next time they return to the site.

The site is cosponsored by six consumer groups: the Center for Democracy and Technology, the National Consumers League, Consumer Action, Common Cause, Call for Action, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The online guide pulls information and other resources from each of the groups.

"There are a great many educational materials on the Internet already," says Paula Bruening, staff counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology. "We hope that this site will be a place for practical and user-friendly information for consumers to protect their privacy."

Back in Focus

The site was launched to bring Internet privacy and security issues back into focus, group members say. Protecting online privacy has fallen out of favor since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, with Congress and the Bush administration giving law enforcement agencies more power to snoop on digital communication.

"The issue persists, and I agree that in the wake of Sept. 11 it may have quieted for a few months, but we're going to see it again," Bruening says of online privacy protection.

The timing of the launch also was intended to come as consumers wrap up the largest shopping season of the year.

"It comes just in time, since we all expect a lot of e-commerce to take place during this holiday season," says Scott Harshbarger, president of Common Cause, and former state attorney general for Massachusetts. "It tells people how to harness technology to protect their privacy."

Growing Site

The group expects to add new features to the Web site, including links to tools for managing Web site privacy policies, called P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences). With P3P, Internet users can set the level of privacy they want from a Web site; that allows them to block access to sites that don't meet that privacy criteria.

Microsoft is building P3P into its Internet Explorer Web browsers. AT&T is also working on a beta version of a tool for managing privacy, the groups say.