The New York Times has a great summary of yesterday's Exploring Privacy workshop at the FTC, where Adam and I made the case that restrictive, preemptive privacy regulations affecting online advertising is likely to harm, not help, consumers. Check out Adam's excellent summary here. Adotas notes:

... the highlight was the third panel, when Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy and an outspoken online privacy advocate, and Berin Szoka, director of the Center for Internet Freedom at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, got into a 10-minute tete-a-tete on the importance of targeting in advertising as well as journalism.

[Jeff] Chester railed against targeting in general and called for a "citizen friendly" system while Szoka the importance of targeted advertising in funding high-cost content. Szoka argued that for users to access certain content at no cost, there is a trade-off in giving up certain types of data.

Jeff and I will be "taking our show on the road" Wednesday morning with a four-way debate moderated by Rob Atkinson of ITIF, also including Howard Beales and Ari Schwartz, as well as the FTC's Peder McGee. Given the energy level in our discussion at the FTC, this more focused panel promises to be a great discussion of how to maximize the many competing values of consumers--or, more precisely (from my perspective, anyway), how to educate and empower users to make those decisions for themselves.

So don't miss it if you can attend (1101 K Street, Suite 610, Washington, DC), and be sure to watch the live-streaming if you can't!

Check out these other stories covering the FTC event:

• "FTC to Consider Stricter Online Privacy Rules," PC World


• "Chester Pushes For Under-the-Hood Privacy Check-Up," Broadcasting & Cable


• "FTC Grapples With Privacy At Roundtable With Industry Professionals, Privacy Advocates, Academics," Media Post


• "Extent, Need for Total Consumer Understanding of Targeted Ads Debated," Washington Internet Daily [subscription-only]

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