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The Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee has offered DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano 16 recommendations on how to best address privacy issues currently facing the department. The panel stressed that "the need to update the government's legal authority to protect and defend cyberspace in the U.S. classified intelligence systems raise specific and sometimes significant privacy issues, including the conflict between transparency and redress." The committee has asked that each DHS component - such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Office of Intelligence and Analysis - have a designated privacy officer that would report to the head of the section. The committee also "encourages DHS to continue to work toward policy and functional interoperability in the development of new systems and when making major modifications to existing systems," according to a letter from the committee hand delivered to Napolitano. Additionally, the panel said the 1974 Privacy Act has "not kept pace with the evolution of technology and developments in how data is collected, used, shared and stored. To the extent the Secretary is asked to submit recommendations to Congress for making the act more relevant and effective, the committee recommends that the secretary seek guidance from the Privacy Office staff, who are experts in applying the Act's provisions throughout the department." For more on the recommendations, read the committee's letter here.

A group of U.S. companies, led by technology giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and eBay, is set to outline recommendations for new federal data-privacy legislation that could make life easier for consumers and lead to a standard federal breach-notification law. The recommendations, which were developed by a group of industry players called the Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum, are set to be released at an upcoming privacy conference six weeks from now, according to Peter Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy officer. The companies have been working for the past three years to encourage the adoption of federal consumer data-privacy laws and to answer the question of what federal legislation should look like, Cullen said in an interview. Other forum members include Google, Oracle, Procter & Gamble and Eli Lilly. One idea is that laws should make it easier for consumers to understand what they're getting into when they share their personal data with Web sites, Cullen said. "The whole focus on consent really puts an unfair burden on the consumer," he said. "My mom doesn't know what an IP address is." The recommendations will cover rules around data use and the ability of consumers to correct inaccurate data. And they will cover data breach notification, which is now covered by a patchwork of state laws. Simplifying breach-notification laws by creating a single federal standard is important, Cullen said Wednesday while speaking at a discussion of privacy policy in San Francisco. "It's not that there is no privacy law. There's actually too much privacy law," he said. "If you think about data-breach notification laws just as an example, there are 38 state laws, many of them very different." "We need to think about much more of a framework approach." Congress has passed some laws covering consumer data privacy, such as the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), but existing laws do not comprehensively cover consumer privacy in general.

The loss of personally identifiable information, such as an individual's Social Security number, name, and date of birth can result in serious harm, including identity theft. Identity theft is a serious crime that impacts millions of individuals each year. Identity theft occurs when such information is used without authorization to commit fraud or other crimes. While progress has been made protecting personally identifiable information in the public and private sectors, challenges remain. GAO was asked to testify on how the loss of personally identifiable information contributes to identity theft. This testimony summarizes (1) the problem of identity theft; (2) steps taken at the federal, state, and local level to prevent potential identity theft; and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting personally identifiable information, including in federal information systems. For this testimony, GAO relied primarily on information from prior reports and testimonies that address public and private sector use of personally identifiable information, as well as federal, state, and local efforts to protect the security of such information. GAO and agency inspectors general have made numerous recommendations to agencies to resolve prior significant information control deficiencies and information security program shortfalls. The effective implementation of these recommendations will continue to strengthen the security posture at these agencies. Identity theft is a serious problem because, among other things, it can take a long period of time before a victim becomes aware that the crime has taken place and thus can cause substantial harm to the victim's credit rating. Moreover, while some identity theft victims can resolve their problems quickly, others face substantial costs and inconvenience repairing damage to their credit records. Some individuals have lost job opportunities, been refused loans, or even been arrested for crimes they did not commit as a result of identit

The loss of personally identifiable information, such as an individual's Social Security number, name, and date of birth can result in serious harm, including identity theft. Identity theft is a serious crime that impacts millions of individuals each year. Identity theft occurs when such information is used without authorization to commit fraud or other crimes. While progress has been made protecting personally identifiable information in the public and private sectors, challenges remain. GAO was asked to testify on how the loss of personally identifiable information contributes to identity theft. This testimony summarizes (1) the problem of identity theft; (2) steps taken at the federal, state, and local level to prevent potential identity theft; and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting personally identifiable information, including in federal information systems. For this testimony, GAO relied primarily on information from prior reports and testimonies that address public and private sector use of personally identifiable information, as well as federal, state, and local efforts to protect the security of such information. GAO and agency inspectors general have made numerous recommendations to agencies to resolve prior significant information control deficiencies and information security program shortfalls. The effective implementation of these recommendations will continue to strengthen the security posture at these agencies. Identity theft is a serious problem because, among other things, it can take a long period of time before a victim becomes aware that the crime has taken place and thus can cause substantial harm to the victim's credit rating. Moreover, while some identity theft victims can resolve their problems quickly, others face substantial costs and inconvenience repairing damage to their credit records. Some individuals have lost job opportunities, been refused loans, or even been arrested for crimes they did not commit as a result of identit

Obama administration cybersecurity advisor Melissa Hathaway, in her much anticipated speech before the RSA Conference on Wednesday, suggested that the findings of a study she submitted Friday to President Obama calls for cybersecurity policy to be run from the White House. "The White House must lead the way forward with leadership that draws upon the strength, advice and ideas of the entire nation," said Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils. Scant on details, Hathaway in her 2,400-word speech did not explain how federal cybersecurity should be governed, even if it's based in the White House. Two months ago, President Obama charged Hathaway to head up a team to review current cybersecurity policies and processes. "It can be said that the federal government is not organized appropriately to address this growing problem because responsibilities for cyberspace are distributed across a wide array of federal departments and agencies, many with overlapping authorities and none with sufficient decision authority to direct actions that can address the problem completely," Hathaway said. "We need an agreed way forward based on common understanding and acceptance of the problem." Hathaway said the team she assembled addressed all missions and activities associated with the information and communications infrastructure, including the missions of computer network defense, law enforcement investigations, military and intelligence activities and the intersection of information assurance, counter intelligence, counter terrorism, telecommunications policies and general critical infrastructure protection. Task force members held more than 40 meetings with different stakeholder groups during the 60 days and received and read more than 100 papers that provided specific recommendations and goals, she said. "We identified over 250 needs, tasks, and recommendations," Hathaway said. "We also solicited input from gov

It's unclear whether a report being prepared for President Barack Obama on federal information security preparedness will support recent calls for the creation of a new cybersecurity office within the White House, two lawmakers said last week. Instead, the report may recommend a more collaborative and cooperative strategy among federal agencies on the issue of cybersecurity without a single agency or department in charge, they said. Members of the U.S. House Cybersecurity Caucus met with Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. Hathaway, who is conducting a 60-day review of federal cybersecurity preparedness on behalf of the president, Thursday presented a status report to members of the caucus. Speaking with reporters after the briefing, Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), co-chair of the caucus, and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of a subcommittee within the Committee on Homeland Security, said it was unclear yet what Hathaway might recommend. Rather than "include another structure" within the White House, there may be a call for an increase in staffing within the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in a bid to improve its current role of overseeing government cyberaffairs, said Langevin. Chances are "there will not be one king," he said. Langevin co-chaired a commission at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, that has called for the creation of a centralized cybersecurity office in the White House to be named the National Office for Cyberspace. The new office could combine the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) and the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force, two existing agencies that are handing cybersecurity today. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has also called for a new office dedicated to cybersecurity within the White House. Calls have been prompted by what is perceived as the inability of the U.S. De

Privacy rights are accepted and, generally, honored in Europe. The wealth - literally and figuratively - of personal information made available through the internet staggers the imagination. Staggering, too, is the prospect of privacy rights being trampled. EC Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has a bone to pick with internet snooping. And she's launching an investigation into deep data mining. In an official statement (to be released March 31) she will outline concerns of vague and misleading 'term of use' for access to Web sites that can breach EC privacy rules. Commissioner Kuneva was born and raised in Bulgaria during a time when snooping on people was common, legal and nasty. The European Parliament (EuroParl) voted (March 27) overwhelmingly for recommendations in a report linking data surveillance, advertising and cybercrime. The report recommends safeguards for the privacy rights of internet users. The EuroParl called for "making use of existing national, regional, and international law." The MEPs raised the "imbalance of negotiating power between (internet) users and institutions." Internet users, said the MEPs, have the right to "permanently delete" personal details. Facebook's recent change in 'terms of use' allowing it to retain personal information brought a firestorm of criticism and the social networking portal backtracked. And the EC was watching. "It wasn't regulators who spotted the proposed change of terms at Facebook, it was one of the 175 million users," said Commissioner Kuneva's spokesperson Helen Kearns. Collecting and analyzing profile data is big business. It is "the new petroleum of the Internet world," said Ms Kearns, quoted in PC World (March 30). "If you are happy trading your data that's fine, but you should at least know how valuable it is." As Google and Microsoft have learned European Commission rules, unlike American rules, tend to set a low bar for compliance. The former pr

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this month released preliminary recommendations that federal agencies -- and their contractors -- should follow to protect the confidentially of personally identifiable information (PII). U.S. government agencies should take a number of precautions when dealing with personal information residing in their organizations, according to the NIST document. The recommendations are intended to be for U.S. federal government agencies, and companies with which they work, but NIST said that other verticals may also find value in it. The report states that organizations should store only PII necessary to conduct business, develop an incident response plan for the event of a breach and encourage coordination for data-loss incidents among CIOs, information security officers and legal counsel.

Visit the Amazon.com site to buy a book online and your welcome page will include recommendations for other books you might enjoy, including the latest from your favorite authors, all based on your history of purchases. Most customers appreciate these suggestions, much the way they would recommendations by a local librarian. But, what if you visited an investment site, only to find advertising messages suggesting therapies for your recently diagnosed heart condition? Chances are that you would experience what Fran Maier calls the "creepiness" factor, a sense that someone has been snooping into a part of your life that should remain private. Maier is the Executive Director of TrustE, a nonprofit that sets guidelines for online privacy and awards a seal of approval to companies meeting those guidelines. She was a speaker at the recent Supernova conference, an annual technology event in San Francisco organized by Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach in collaboration with Wharton. Creepiness Factor The creepiness factor is a risk inherent in so-called behavioral targeting. This practice is based on marketers anonymously observing a user's behavior on the Internet and compiling a personal profile based on interests and behavior -- sites visited, searches conducted, articles read, even emails written and received. Based on their profiles, users receive advertising targeted specifically to them, regardless of where they travel on the web. Consumer advocates worry that online data collection and tracking is going too far. Marketing executives counter that consumers benefit from seeing advertising relevant to their interests and contend that relinquishing some personal data is a reasonable trade-off for free access to Internet content, much of it supported by advertising.

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In what it described as an historic document, the National Institute for Standards and Technology issued a special report entitled Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations. Special Publication 800-53, Revision 3, is historic in nature. For the first time, and as part of a continuing initiative to develop a unified information security framework for the federal government and its contractors, NIST has included security controls in its catalog for national security and non-national security systems in its latest revision, No. 3, of Special Publication 800-53. "The important changes described (in the publication) are part of a larger strategic initiative to focus on enterprise-wide, near real-time risk management; that is, managing risks from information systems in dynamic environments of operation that can adversely affect organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the nation," Ron Ross, NIST's Federal Information Security Management Act implementation project leader, said in a message incorporated into the 220-page report. According to the document, the updated security control catalogue incorporates best practices in information security from the Department of Defense, intelligence community and civilian agencies to produce the most broad-based and comprehensive set of safeguards and countermeasures ever developed for information systems.

"Fomer UCLA Healthcare System researcher Huping Zhou has pleaded guilty to violating parts of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and could be one of the first people in the country convicted under the law, federal authorities announced Friday. After learning he was to be let go, the 48-year-old is alleged to have accessed the UCLA patient records system 323 times during the three-week period, mostly to check out the files of celebrities, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The names of the targeted stars have not been revealed. Federal authorities say Zhou admitted to accessing the records -- cruising files that were not necessary to view as part of his job -- under a plea agreement. He'll face a judge for sentencing March 22. It's not clear what kind of punishment the U.S. Attorney's Office will recommend in exchange for his cooperation."

Is the price to safeguard America's information systems and networks on a collision course with efforts to rescue the economy? One would hope not, but the $789 billion stimulus package that contains nearly $10 billions for IT-related projects offered very little for cybersecurity. Still, the president sees protecting government and private-sector information systems as crucial to the economic vitality of the country. So, when Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace Melissa Hathaway hands the President her recommendations on securing the nation's information infrastructure later this month, a sharper picture should emerge on how much money the government will need to spend to do just that. What Price Security? The government isn't a spendthrift in protecting its IT networks; it earmarked $6.8 billion a year on cybersecurity this fiscal year, up from $4.2 billion five years ago, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. But is that enough? Appropriating money to find new and innovative ways to protect our critical information infrastructure doesn't seem to be a government priority, at least not yet. Of the $147 billion the government planned to spend on all types of research and development this fiscal year, only $300 million or 0.2 percent was slated for cybersecurity, according to the Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. By comparison, the budget contained five times as much money $1.5 billion for nanotechnology R&D.

The Homeland Security Department's privacy office will hold a conference to explore the use of social media as if affects security and privacy. The "Government 2.0: Privacy and Best Practices" conference will be held June 22 to June 23 in Washington and is open to the public. The workshop is meant to help agencies use Web 2.0 technologies in ways to protect privacy and security, and to explore the best practices for implementing President Barack Obama's memo on open government that was released in January, according to a notice published in the federal register April 17. Panelists will discuss topics such as transparency and participation in government, privacy and legal concerns brought by the government's use of social media, and how the government can best use the technologies while protecting privacy rights during the conference, DHS officials said. DHS is asking for comments by June 1 on topics such as: * How the government is using social media. * The risks, benefits and operational concerns that come from government use of the technologies. * Privacy, security and legal issues raised by the government's use of social media. * Recommendations on best practices for government use of the technologies.

Former Booz Allen Hamilton management consultant Melissa Hathaway's much anticipated 60-day review of U.S. cybersecurity policy is scheduled to hit President Obama's desk this Friday. All eyes of the tech security community will be watching. It will signal what approach Obama will take in the complicated task of stemming cyber threats. Obama has said he will make the Internet safer for citizens and businesses, while playing catchup to China and Russia who are far ahead in the cyberwarfare arms race. "We're trying to do cybersecurity in a democracy," says Leslie Harris, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology. "Doing cybersecurity in China, my guess, is a lot easier." CDT held a press briefing this morning at which it warned that a cybersecurity bill, introduced earlier this month by Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va, and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is the first of several that likely will be proposed once Hathaway's review is out. Harris said CDT agrees with a provision in the Rockefeller-Snowe bill that would create a cabinet-level cybersecurity adviser reporting directly to President Obama, but questions some of the extraordinary federal enforcement powers that could be created. CDT says it doesn't want citizens' civil liberties trampled upon. CDT general counsel Greg Nojeim gave Hathaway high marks for keeping her review process relatively open, in contrast to the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy. "So far the White House review team gets high grades on transparency," Nojeim said. Hathaway has held closed briefings in the past several weeks with Congressional committees, industry groups and privacy organizations, said Nojeim. "But the real test will be whether their recommendations reflect a commitment to transparency in the execution of the program," said Nojeim.

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If behavioral targeting is the key to providing Web users with advertising that's better tailored to their particular needs and interests--instead of banner ads that they ignore--then what's the harm to consumers? That was a central question tackled by a panel of privacy and online marketing experts Thursday at the OMMA Behavioral conference in New York. Whether online user tracking--even when anonymous--represents a growing threat to privacy has become a hotly debated issue in the last year, with FTC, Congress and state governments considering increased regulation of behavioral targeting. For Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the AT&T-funded think tank Future of Privacy Forum, that debate has become almost superfluous. Whatever side one takes, he emphasized that there is now a widespread perception among consumers and regulators that online tracking is creepy at the very least. The key to diffusing the controversy is for publishers and marketers to give Web users notice that their behavior is being tracked in order to provide them with more relevant content, recommendations and marketing offers.

A group of federal agencies and private organizations, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, has released a set of guidelines defining the top 20 things organizations should do to prevent cyberattacks. The Consensus Audit Guidelines (CAG) describe the 20 key actions, referred to as security controls, that organizations should take to defend their computer systems. The controls are expected to become baseline best practices for computer security, following further public- and private-sector review. CAG is being led by John Gilligan, formerly the CIO for both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Energy, and a member of the Obama transition team dealing with IT in the Department of Defense and various intelligence agencies. "We are in a war, a cyberwar," Gilligan said on a media conference call. "And the federal government is one of many large organizations that are being targeted. Our ability at present to detect and defend against these attacks is really quite weak in many cases." Borrowing an analogy he attributed to an unnamed federal CIO, Gilligan said, "We're bleeding badly and we really need triage and we need to focus on things that will keep this patient alive." The CAG initiative represents part of a larger effort, backed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., to implement recommendations from the CSIS Commission report on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

The key points of the plan closely mirror recommendations offered late last year by a bipartisan commission of computer security experts, which urged then president-elect Obama to set up a high-level post to tackle cyber security, consider new regulations to combat cyber crime and shore up the security of the nation's most sensitive computer networks. The strategy, as outlined in a broader policy document on homeland security priorities posted on the Whitehouse.gov Web site Wednesday, states the following goals: * Strengthen Federal Leadership on Cyber Security: Declare the cyber infrastructure a strategic asset and establish the position of national cyber advisor who will report directly to the president and will be responsible for coordinating federal agency efforts and development of national cyber policy. * Initiate a Safe Computing R&D Effort and Harden our Nation's Cyber Infrastructure: Support an initiative to develop next-generation secure computers and networking for national security applications. Work with industry and academia to develop and deploy a new generation of secure hardware and software for our critical cyber infrastructure. * Protect the IT Infrastructure That Keeps America's Economy Safe: Work with the private sector to establish tough new standards for cyber security and physical resilience. * Prevent Corporate Cyber-Espionage: Work with industry to develop the systems necessary to protect our nation's trade secrets and our research and development. Innovations in software, engineering, pharmaceuticals and other fields are being stolen online from U.S. businesses at an alarming rate. * Develop a Cyber Crime Strategy to Minimize the Opportunities for Criminal Profit: Shut down the mechanisms used to transmit criminal profits by shutting down untraceable Internet payment schemes. Initiate a grant and training program to provide federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies the tools they need to detect and prosecute cyber crime. *

The federal government has a key role to play in researching and organizing a national response to the problem of medical identity theft, authors of a government-funded study have concluded. Patients, providers, payers and other members of the healthcare community also must join in the effort to combat a problem that is serious, although as yet its scope is not fully known, the report stated. Contractor Booz Allen Hamilton released the report last week. It represents the final phase of the $450,000 study funded last year by the Office of the National Coordinator at HHS. The study consisted of three parts, the first being to review existing knowledge about medical identity theft as well as policies and practices to prevent it. Those findings were included in a research paper on the subject released last October. The second phase involved a public meeting Oct. 15, 2008, the same day the paper was released, to "open a dialogue about medical identity theft within the healthcare industry. The final phase, the 26-page report, includes 31 "potential actions," which are recommendations that could form a national policy on medical identity theft. While medical identity theft "may be categorized as healthcare fraud," according to the report, "there are unique and important distinctions of medical identity theft that need to become more commonly understood to address this issue effectively." One difference, the report authors noted, is that the primary motive behind healthcare fraud "is most often monetary gain, such as when fraudulent providers bill for more expensive services than those rendered. However, medical identity theft tends to be focused on the use of someone else's information to gain goods, services and healthcare." IT could hurt, help Therefore, undetected medical identity theft poses medical risks to its victims, since their medical records may contain inaccurate and potentially harmful information that may cause them not to be con

On November 1 and 2, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission will host a Town Hall entitled "Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology." The event will bring together consumer advocates, industry representatives, technology experts, and academics to address consumer protection issues raised by the practice of tracking consumers' activities online to target advertising - or "behavioral advertising." The Town Hall is a follow-on to a dialogue on behavioral advertising that emerged at a November 2006 FTC forum, "Tech-Ade," which examined the key technological and business developments that will shape consumers' core experiences in the coming ten years. In addition, several consumer privacy advocates, as well as the State of New York, recently sent letters to the FTC asking it to examine the effects of behavioral advertising on consumer privacy. The Town Hall will explore how the online advertising market, and specifically behavioral advertising, has changed in recent years, and what changes are anticipated over the next five years. Among other things, it will examine what types of consumer data are collected, how such data are used, what protections are provided for that data, and the costs and benefits of behavioral advertising to consumers. The Town Hall will also address what companies are disclosing to consumers and what consumers understand about the online collection of their information for use in advertising. In addition, the Town Hall will look at what regulatory and self-regulatory measures currently govern the practices related to online behavioral advertising, as well as anticipated changes in the behavioral advertising space in the future. The Commission invites interested parties to submit requests to be panelists and to recommend other topics for discussion. The requests should be submitted electronically to behavioraladvertising_requests@ftc.gov by September 14, 2007. The Commission asks interested parties to include a stat

As the National Security Council works on its comprehensive review of federal cybersecurity programs for President Obama, it is going to great lengths to consider privacy and civil liberty issues, some Congress members said Thursday. The House Cybersecurity Caucus on Thursday met with Melissa Hathaway, the acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils, who is conducting for the administration a 60-day cybersecurity review. Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus, said Hathaway has been meeting with privacy and civil liberties groups to receive their input on how to reform cybersecurity. Those issues are "a forethought rather than an afterthought," he said. "Because these are such powerful tools (to grant federal authorities to regulate cyberspace), we're going to have to have the buy-in of the public and have their support." While the Senate is working on its own plan for White House-run cybersecurity efforts, Langevin said Hathaway's assessment may ultimately suggest a strategy with a stronger emphasis on inter-agency efforts. Langevin said it is still unclear whether Hathaway will recommend that a new office for cybersecurity should be created within the Executive Office of the President--a move some senators are pushing for. Certainly, though, policy will have to come from the White House. "This is going to have to be an ongoing strategy of collaboration and cooperation directed out of the White House," Langevin said. "But there won't be one king, so to speak, at the end of the day. The chief information officers at the departments and agencies are still going to have a role to play."

The Federal Trade Commission had some sharp words for Internet advertising companies Thursday, saying that they simply are not disclosing how they collect information about users well enough. And the agency threatened that the industry had better get its act together - or else. Or else what? Well, that's a bit harder. The commission has limited ability to issue binding regulations on advertising practices, and the process is cumbersome. But if the agency were to say that its attempt over the last few years to have Internet companies voluntarily bolster their privacy standards has failed, it could encourage Congress to pass online privacy legislation. Indeed, two members of the commission - Pamela Jones Harbour, an independent, and Jon Leibowitz, a Democrat - issued statements saying that while they support the commission's action, they hope for further regulation and possibly legislation on the issue. What the commission issued Thursday was the final version of its principles for online behavioral advertising - that is, ads shown to you based on something you did in the past. The agency issued its first draft of these at the end of 2007 and spent more than a year digesting comments. These principles were meant to spur various Internet groups to create self-regulatory standards for their members. And one group, the Network Advertising Initiative, did publish new rules. The top recommendation was that users should be given clear notice about what information was collected and an easy way to tell sites to stop watching them. "What we observe is that, with rare exception, is not the rule for any Web sites," said Eileen Harrington, the acting director of the commission's bureau of consumer protection, in an interview Thursday. "It is far more commonplace to put the information in the midst of lengthy and hard-to-understand privacy policies."