FTC Opens Hearing on Public’s Right to Online Privacy

WASHINGTON — Federal officials expressed concerns Tuesday about the availability of personal information through the Internet and for-pay databases, despite an announcement by a group of electronic database operators of industrywide self-regulatory practices.

On the opening day of Federal Trade Commission hearing on consumer online privacy, Lexis-Nexis, Experian, First Data InfoSource/Donnelly Marketing, Choicepoint, Database Technologies, IRSC Inc., Metromail and Information America pledged to stop using information from private marketing databases. They said they will still provide some information, including phone numbers, addresses and vehicle records.

But FTC Commissioner Christine Varney, a longtime critic of the industry, questioned company executives about the new kinds of information their services provide, such as allowing users to get directions to a person’s house using only that person’s name.

“At what point do we begin to get concerned that this crosses traditional lines of privacy?” she repeatedly asked the executives.

The FTC hearing is in response to escalating concern that companies offering computerized information are compromising the privacy rights of individuals.

The eight companies agreed to release private information only to what they call qualified subscribers who promise to use the information appropriately. The agreement leaves it up to the services to explain on Web sites and other public areas which uses are appropriate and which subscribers can get the information.

The group also agreed not to use information gathered from private marketing databases, people’s buying preferences, household income and other data that critics say allows creation of dossiers on ordinary private individuals.

The companies also said they would restrict their sale of nonpublic information, such as an individual’s credit records, to professionals such as banks and private investigators so the information wouldn’t be abused.

But the rules don’t specify any oversight or punishments for companies that don’t adhere. And several industry executives at the hearing acknowledged they don’t always know where their information comes from.