In a time when ACTA, SOPA and PIPA are on everyone’s lips, the U.S. government under President Obama officially presented the outline of the document known as the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. It’s an obvious reference to the constitutional Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees basic civil liberties.

The initiative forms part of the campaign “We cannot wait,” launched by President Obama to demonstrate the government’s willingness to act in favor of the people.

According to officials from the White House, the new rules should ensure the privacy of users on the Internet. They are based on the following principles:

• Individual control: You have the rights to control the data collected about you and company should informed you as how they have used your data.
• Transparency: The companies are going to be more clear and understandable on their privacy and security policies, which can be understandable by average person.
• Preserve the context: You have the right to know what companies will collect, and the companies will use and disclose information in a manner that is consistent with the context in which data has been delivered to them.
• Security: The user has the right to expect that data will be stored in a safe and responsible manner.
• Access and accuracy: You have the rights to access and correct their data.
• Precision: You have the rights to limit the amount of information that companies would collect from you to store on their database.
• Responsibility: You have the rights to expect that the data will be collected only by companies that have a mechanism to ensure that the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights will be respected.

Transparency and the environment

Attention is also paid to transparency and the environment. Consumers have right to know which of their data are collected, why and how they are used, when they will be canceled and for what reasons they are shared with other companies, as well as the right to expect that those groups will use and share their data in a consistent manner with the context in which data are collected.

“The president’s privacy framework assures that as new Internet services develop privacy rules will keep up with, and not hamper, the pace of innovation,” the statement said. “This framework takes advantage of the flexibility of self-regulatory processes but assures that new codes of conduct are guided by a comprehensive, forward-looking set of privacy principles and that all interested parties such as consumer advocates have a voice in the process.”

An industry effort to placate consumers

This effort is also part of the agreement with the major web companies – including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL, which represent almost 90% of the behavioral advertising market – to allow users to have more control over the monitoring of their activities online. This does not mean that the web company will not pursue any type of monitoring, but will undertake efforts not to use the data on surfing habits of users to package and customized ads for insurance or health.

But the data will continue to be used for purposes such as market research and product development.  The information will also be accessible to law enforcement and the “do-not-track” also does not block the functions of some sites – such as ‘I like’ on Facebook.

The initiative is the result of an official study of several years on how to regulate the privacy of online companies for commercial purposes that use online services.

The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is one of the 4 elements of the report “Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy,” published this week by the White House.

Privacy concerns by internet companies

The announcement comes after several giants like Facebook and Google recognized publicly in recent weeks that some of their business practices have not been respectful of the privacy of its customers.

Internet companies have faced months of opposition by the general establishment that would prevent the user’s personal information to be shared with other sites and customer lists.

Just this week Microsoft complained that Google is circumventing the privacy settings of its Internet Explorer web browser. Microsoft claims new findings on how Google bypasses IE protections to place cookies that track users’ activities across the web.

Perhaps prompting Microsoft’s complaints, an earlier report published in the Wall Street Journal claimed that Google and other advertising companies have found a way to bypass the privacy settings of Apple’s Safari, the top mobile browser used these days. The report explains how Google and the other companies used a special computer code that tricks the Apple browser into letting them monitor the browsing activity of iOS users.

Privacy agreement from large companies

As reported today by The Wall Street Journal, a coalition of large companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, HP and RIM, came forward to the future regulation in this area and agrees to incorporate a “button” on almost all browsers, giving the user the ability to prevent tracking of your data.

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris reached an agreement with these companies in the mobile-device market that could put a privacy rule on how companies use personal data.

“We have populations without knowledge of mobile technology’s potential uses who are potentially vulnerable,” Harris said. “We seek to give them tools to protect themselves.”

Once a company agrees to abide by a code of conduct on privacy, compliance with this commitment will monitor the Federal Trade Commission.

Coinciding with the official announcement of the proposals to be made today, called Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a coalition of media and marketing associations will undertake to meet user requests for not “keep track” of user data in web browsers.

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. companies that use targeted advertising are affiliated with the DAA.