Labor Day Open Thread > Congress looking at Privacy bill for internet ads

Rep. Rick Boucher, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, hopes to put in a bill governing Internet advertising.

• Web sites that collect information about visitors — or use an outside company to do that — in order to target advertising on their own pages would be required to prominently disclose what information they gather. The sites would be required to allow visitors to "opt out" of data collection altogether.

• Web sites that share user information with outside advertising networks, which place ads on sites all over the Internet, would be required to obtain user approval before collecting data. That is, consumers would have to "opt in."

• Web sites that deal with sensitive personal information, such as medical and financial data, sexual orientation, Social Security numbers and other ID numbers, would be subject to the opt-in rule. So would sites that share consumer information with unaffiliated third parties for commercial purposes.