Submission Number: 00003 

Received: 12/1/2010 1:09:47 PM
Commenter: John Blumel
Organization: 
State: New York
Agency: Federal Trade Commission
Initiative: A Preliminary FTC Staff Report on "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers"
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
The only system that will prevent continued invasion of privacy by companies that profit through trafficking in personal data is one where it is illegal to collect data without consent. Opt-out simply won't work because there's no practical and effective technological method for implementing it. Any opt-out system would necessarily involve forcing citizens to give up additional information that tracking companies may not even have no, allowing them to "inadvertently" track users with greater precision and collect even more information than they do now. Opt-out is also totally unenforceable as there is no practical way to know whether tracking companies are in compliance or not.