The Future of Privacy Forum: Online Privacy, Net Neutrality and Think Tanks

As we move into an increasingly digital world, the right to privacy has become one of the most highly politicized issues in government and industry. Can you ever be truly anonymous on the web? How much information can companies gather about potential consumers through the web? What would happen if a major social network like MySpace or Facebook were hacked? Because privacy laws can’t adapt as fast as technology can change, these kinds of questions are notoriously difficult to answer. Of course, that’s the reason people invented Think Tanks.

Known for their eclectic mix of industry insiders and academic researchers, Think Tanks play an important part in shaping policy on a variety of issues. While there are already a number of Think Tanks in Washington, D.C. dedicated to privacy, the relatively new Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), merits particular attention.

Established in November 2008, FPF is headed by Jules Polonetsky, the former Chief Privacy Officer of AOL, and Christopher Wolf, a partner at Washington D.C. law firm Proskauer Rose LLP. According to the organization’s official homepage, the FPF “advocates for privacy advances that promote transparency and user control in a manner that is practical for business to implement to ensure personal autonomy for all who seek to embrace the benefits of our digital society.”

While the FPF boilerplate sounds good, we especially like that “personal autonomy” bit; ars technica reports that the group’s corporate ties have made some anxious about their promises.

From the article:

The Q&A session, however, quickly turned from the private to the pecuniary, with some pointed questions about the organization’s funding. The Forum’s initial money has come primarily from AT&T, with which Wolf’s firm has longstanding ties. Several online commentators, such as Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, have worried that the Forum will act as a handmaiden of business, helping it preempt or dilute privacy legislation. Wolf, after all, was formerly chair of the Hands Off the Internet Coalition, a self-described consumer advocacy group that has often been characterized as an astroturf organization—an industry front dedicated to opposing net neutrality legislation. Polonetsky sought to confront those suspicions head on, denying that the group was an attempt to forestall legislation through promotion of self-regulation.

Besides Wolf’s connection to AT&T, questions of the FPF’s role in the net neutrality debate also arose.

Another—and, it should be noted, inconsistent—theory advanced by Saul Hansell of The New York Times holds that this is part of an ongoing feud between AT&T and Google that has its roots in the net neutrality debate. In this account, the Forum’s rationale is to level the playing field, ensuring that companies like Google don’t enjoy a competitive advantage in their ability to target advertising to consumers by using their personal data at the application level, something that ISPs are prevented from exploiting directly.

One of Google’s privacy attorneys has been invited to sit on the Forum’s advisory board, which may cast doubt on this suggestion. That invitee, however, hasn’t yet accepted or rejected the offer, which may signal that the search giant has suspicions of its own on this front.

Empowering individuals to use the Internet responsibly and pro-actively goes to the very core of ReputationDefender, and any government agency or Think Tank that works toward that goal is a potential privacy advocate. The Future of Privacy Forum is certainly something that we’ll be keeping our eyes on here at the ReputationDefender Blog.