Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security 846
pcidevel writes "D. Reed Freeman, the "Chief Privacy Officer" of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security's "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee"."
Re:The Onion (Score:2, Informative)
And I guess it's true as CNET [com.com] has picked up the story too.
He is apparently a Law Professor and teaches a class on The Regulation of Advertising. [findlaw.com]
My question is how can somebody such as himself be associated with a company like Gator that tries their best to trick consumers?
- Cary
--Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]: Where Fairfax County comes out to play
CNET News.com (Score:5, Informative)
Here's CNET News.com's version of the story:
Adware maker joins federal privacy board
Published: February 23, 2005, 5:19 PM PST
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
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An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of the committee, the department said Wednesday.
"This committee will provide the department with important recommendations on how to further the department's mission while protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information of citizens and visitors of the United States," Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the department's chief privacy officer, said in a statement.
Claria bundles its pop-up advertising software with ad-supported networks such as Kazaa. Recently, the privately held company has been trying to seek credibility by following stricter privacy guidelines and offering behavioral profiling services to its partners.
In an e-mail message to CNET News.com, Kelly defended the inclusion of a Claria representative on the committee. "I am proud of, supportive of and grateful for those individuals in the public and private sector who are willing to take on the hard tasks, fight the good fight, and who surprise us with creative, fresh and unconventional thinking, and who make change where change is needed through their hard work and personal dedication," Kelly said.
In the past, Claria's pop-up ad software has riled some users who claimed it was annoying, installed without permission, and not easy to delete. Publishers also were irked about pop-up ads for a rival's product appearing next to their own Web sites. Catalog retailer L.L. Bean sued Gator for alleged trademark infringement.
Claria's representative on the Homeland Security privacy board is company Vice President D. Reed Freeman, a former Federal Trade Commission staff attorney. Other members include executives from Intel, Computer Associates International, IBM, Oracle and the Cato Institute.
Kelly said Freeman will "bring his courage and conviction to the board, and will contribute productively--and constructively--to the board's and the public's dialogue on privacy and homeland security."
The committee is tasked with providing "external expert advice to the secretary and the chief privacy officer on programmatic, policy, operational and technological issues that affect privacy, data integrity and data interoperability."
In February 2003, Gator settled a high-profile case brought by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Dow Jones and other media companies. Terms of that deal were quiet, but Claria appears to have stopped delivering pop-ups to those publishers' sites.
Claria did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNET News.com's Stefanie Olsen contributed to this report.
Nuala O'Connor Kelly? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:talk about oxymoron (Score:3, Informative)
oh and they do also have a section on modern newspeak not only the Orwell version.
Just in case anyone cares... (Score:2, Informative)
...who this guy actually is:
http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/privacy/freeman.html [findlaw.com]
Looks like this guy is a well established lawyer with alot of FTC connections. He also specializes in privacy law, which means his job is to figure out every loophole available to help his clients exploit it thouroughly. ;)
Committee member list (Score:5, Informative)
Members appointed for the inaugural term of the DHS Privacy Advisory Committee are:
Joseph Alhadeff, Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer, Oracle Corporation, Washington, DC
Ramon Barquin, President, Barquin International, Bethesda, MD
J. Howard Beales, Associate Professor, The George Washington University, Arlington, VA
D. Reed Freeman, Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President, Claria Corporation, Arlington, VA
James W. Harper, Editor/Executive Director, Privacilla.org & Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute, Washington, DC
Kirk Herath, Chief Privacy Officer & Associate General Counsel, Nationwide, Columbus, OH
David A. Hoffman, Group Counsel and Director of Privacy, Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR
Lance Hoffman, Distinguished Research Professor, The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Tara Lemmey, Chief Executive Officer, Lens Ventures, San Francisco, CA
Joseph Leo, Vice President, SAIC, Vienna, VA
John Marsh, Distinguished Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law, Winchester, VA
Joanne McNabb, Chief, Office of Privacy Protection, California Department of Consumer Affairs, Sacramento, CA
Charles Palmer, Department Group Manager, Security, Networking & Privacy, IBM Corporation, Yorktown Heights, NY
Richard Purcell, Chief Executive Officer, Corporate Privacy Group, Nordland, WA
Paul Samuel Rosenzweig, Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC
John Thomas Sabo, Manager, Security, Privacy, and Trust Initiatives, Computer Associates, Herndon, VA
James Sheehan, General Counsel, Milton Hershey School, Hershey, PA
Lisa Sotto, Partner, Head of Regulatory Privacy & Information Management Practice Group, Hunton & Williams, New York, NY
Michael Turner, President and Senior Scholar, Information Policy Institute, New York, NY
Samuel Wright, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, Cendant Corporation, Washington, DC
I can't say I like Freeman being on the committee, but a quick glance at the rest of the list makes me feel a lot better.
Do something? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and in other news (Score:2, Informative)
Re:do something about it... (Score:2, Informative)
Until government is held to strict limits on power, there will be a permanant line of crooks waiting for their turn to exploit that power (both inside and outside the political circle). That's not theory -- that's simple reality. If you favor big government, give yourself a pat on the back, because this is it.
Registration? (Score:2, Informative)
Have you ever even gone to Salon.com?
Re:Nice Troll (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What the heck is going on at homeland security. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:CNET News.com (Score:4, Informative)
Contact DHS, here's the URL (Score:4, Informative)
If all the Slashdot readers called or filled out a form, we might make a difference. Even if nothing changes, at least DHS will know people are aware of this ridiculous act.
Settle Down, Everyone... (Score:2, Informative)
Hopefully it will be an opportunity for the bastard to be allowed just enough rope to hang himself. In other words, the more visible he is while being an idiot, the more people know he is an idiot.
More URLs with contact info (Score:3, Informative)
Contact your elected representatives [firstgov.gov]
Re:The Onion (Score:4, Informative)
on the beefier 3.0 mil copper skullcap w/ground)
And what makes you think that the great bargain
that MSFT got from the Ashcroft DoJ didn't already
have secret provisions for a law enforcement back-
door into their OS(es)? When the regime changed
hands in 2001, MSFT got off with a slap on the
wrist that they practically wrote themselves. And
when the DHS was formed, MSFT was rewarded with
a huge contract with DHS (in spite of warnings
from independent security experts to the contrary).
The appointment of the Gator CPO to their (DHS)
security commission merely underlines the melding
of government and corporate America into the same
mindset - spy on everyone, colate data, and share
all datasets between government and industry.
CARNIVORE has (reportedly) gone away, replaced
with COTS software (from where?). Dubya and the
"neo-cons" in Congress have repeatedly supported
large corporate interests over "free enterprise",
as well as the greater public good. The United
States Supreme Court basically overturned the
USA's democratic (by/of/for the people) republic
in 2000 in favor of corporate interests - its
called Corporate National Socialism (by/of the
corporation, for the people).
A new revolution at the voting booth (presuming
they're not all Diebold electronic voting
machines by the time the people wake up to the
danger), is the only way to turn this "ship of
state" back on course.
But I'm not particularly hopeful.
Meehh! (adjusts anti-DHS 3 mil copper skullcap
to fit the original tinfoil hat on top...)
Re:Only in America (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Committee member list (Score:3, Informative)
Excepting Oracle is one of the leading companies advocating development of massive all seeing, all powerful databases by the government to make us all "safe". They obviously have a conflict of interest because they make money from most of the big databases that are used to collect information about us and violate our privacy. They have been circling like sharks since 9/11 pushing agencies like Homeland Security to create national security databases using Oracle software.
"James W. Harper, Editor/Executive Director, Privacilla.org & Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute, Washington, DC"
The Cato Institute [mediatransparency.org] is a Libertarian group which you might think is a plus for a data privacy committee but its main goal is to eliminate all barriers to profitability for big corporations. If there is profit in it they will see your data privacy down the river in a heartbeat. Its founder Charles Koch own Koch oil, a very big but somewhat obscure oil company with close ties to Bush/Cheney (like all big oil companies), and a notorious pollution record. They were facing massive pollution fines in the Clinton era but they all miraculously disappeared when Bush siezed power in 2000.
"Tara Lemmey, Chief Executive Officer, Lens Ventures, San Francisco, CA"
Don't know anything about this one but her mission statement [lensventures.com] is a trippy exercise in babbling buzzwords, but note especially "From information as property to information as profit" which sounds kind of bad idea for a data privacy committee. She was President of EFF at one time but it kind of sounds like she saw the light and is pursuing profit over freedom at this point:
"LENS brings you passionate, knowledgeable, insightful voices that weave context for the conversation of change. From the latest announcements in biotech to the current zeitgeist in national security. From information as property to information as profit. From the changing architectures of our urban landscape to the changing architectures of our global networks. Leaders from government, science, academia and industry converge and cross-pollinate a broad range of topics and disciplines to bring your audience a full spectrum view unlike any other."
"Paul Samuel Rosenzweig, Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC"
Heritage Foundation is another right wing think tank, and major Bush backer. If you want to see one reason the right is kicking the left's ass its all these very well heeled right wing think tanks that specialize in telling politicians and the media how to think.
"Joseph Leo, Vice President, SAIC, Vienna, VA"
They've starred several times on Slashdot recently. Someone stole a poorly secured computer with social security number for pretty much every employee who ever bought stock in the company.
They were also a key player in the FBI's trilogy project, to computerize the FBI's case files, which after $170 million dollars is most probably going to be scrapped because it was apparently useless.
All in all they are just a big government contractor and they do massive amounts of work for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies and as such probably tread on your privacy as much as Gator, and probably more insidiously.
Think they are a playe rin electronic voting too.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, that would be one crazy, mixed-up dreamworld!
CEO President (Score:3, Informative)
Re:do something about it... (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, the Benet IQ tests were made by an educator in France to test whether students actually learned the knowledge and skills that they were expected to know at a given age level. Later it was adopted by a somewhat xenophopic social darwinists in 19th century America who wanted to use it to test potential immigrants for mental retardation, to use as grounds to deny them immigration.