Last month, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff issued a preliminary report designed to provide a framework within which policy makers, industry and consumer advocates can craft standard practices to protect consumer privacy in the face of rapidly evolving data handling and consumer outreach technology. That report, entitled Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers, begins from a perspective of acknowledging that company data practices have come a long way since the turn of the century. Unfortunately, the connection between companies and consumers over those data practices have not kept up. The report makes several recommendations that the agency says should be adopted as standard industry practice. In addition, the report recommends increased transparency with respect to data practices. Consumers should have reasonable access to their data, states the report, and companies should exert themselves to educate consumers about privacy practices.

The operating principles here are laudably consumer-friendly while maintaining the sort of attempt at voluntary industry self-regulation that is typical of the FTC. At the same time, as usual, the business practices which the FTC views as standard do not consider the operating realities of the typical microbusiness Internet pure play. The sort of behavioral tracking and targeted advertising suggested in this report is beyond either the needs or the budget or the technical sophistication of most online micros. It is entirely possible that the FTC, in this situation, will suggest or even require industry privacy standards and practices that involve using technologies that the typical microbusiness simply cannot afford. The best way to avoid ending up in that situation would be for microbusiness owners and advocates to let the FTC know about it. Fortunately, we have just such a chance to offer our perspective.

The FTC has requested comments from the public on the report and, just last week, extended the comment period deadline from January 31 to February 18, 2011. The FTC preliminary report is available online here. Agency staff has helpfully put together a six-page set of questions they’d like interested stakeholders to weigh in on, which is available here. To submit comments, you can click here and follow the directions.