Industry experts have suggested that the voluntary nature of the US approach to on-line privacy will clash with the rigid European approach, according to an article in the Financial Times.

Voluntary agreements

The blueprint – called a ‘consumer privacy bill of rights’ -- calls for a series of voluntary agreements between consumer groups and on-line advertisers that would decide how personal information is collected, protected and used.
John Simpson, head of the privacy programme at California-based campaigning group Consumer Watchdog, said: ‘There is some speculation that this is designed to undermine what is going on in Europe.’
European privacy groups have also indicated they will fight any impact the agreement would have on European privacy standards.
As well as clashing with European philosophies, some lawyers are also concerned that the bill might lead to a surge of lawsuits. Paul Bond, a partner at global law firm Reed Smith, commented: ‘Companies across the country are already defending against scores of privacy-related consumer class actions … This report will be widely cut-and-pasted into the next wave of privacy class action complaints to come.’

Do not track

The US’s National Law Journal has also highlighted that many leading on-line companies have agreed to act on the contentious issue of ‘do not track’ technology, which allows users to opt out of receiving targeted adverts and also to control the monitoring of their on-line activity.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are among those to already offer this technology, according to the White House.