Online Advertising and Hidden Hazards to Consumer Security and Data Privacy

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Online Advertising and Hidden Hazards to Consumer Security and Data Privacy S. Hrg. 113–407 ONLINE ADVERTISING AND HIDDEN HAZARDS TO CONSUMER SECURITY AND DATA PRIVACY HEARING BEFORE THE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION MAY 15, 2014 Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 89–686 PDF WASHINGTON : 2014 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan TOM COBURN, Oklahoma MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky MARK BEGICH, Alaska MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS CARL LEVIN, Michigan Chairman MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota ELISE J. BEAN, Staff Director and Chief Counsel DANIEL J. GOSHORN, Counsel HENRY J. KERNER, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel JACK THORLIN, Counsel to the Minority BRAD M. PATOUT, Senior Advisor to the Minority SCOTT WITTMANN, Research Assistant to the Minority MARY D. ROBERTSON, Chief Clerk (II) C O N T E N T S Opening statements: Page Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 1 Senator McCain ................................................................................................ 1 Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 22 Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 26 Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 30 Prepared statements: Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 47 Senator McCain ................................................................................................ 49 WITNESSES THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2014 Alex Stamos, Vice President of Information Security, and Chief Information Security Officer, Yahoo! Inc., Sunnydale, California ......................................... 7 George F. Salem, Senior Product Manager, Google Inc., Mountain View, Cali- fornia ..................................................................................................................... 10 Craig D. Spiezle, Executive Director, Founder, and President, Online Trust Alliance, Washington, DC .................................................................................... 12 Maneesha Mithal, Associate Director, Division of Privacy and Identity Protec- tion, Federal Trade Commission, Washington, DC ........................................... 35 Luigi ‘‘Lou’’ Mastria, Executive Director, Digital Advertising Alliance, New York, New York .................................................................................................... 37 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES Mastria, Luigi ‘‘Lou’’: Testimony .......................................................................................................... 37 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 94 Mithal, Maneesha: Testimony .......................................................................................................... 35 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 79 Salem, George F.: Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59 Spiezle, Craig D.: Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 67 Stamos, Alex: Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 APPENDIX Report by the Permanent Subcommittee entitled ‘‘Online Advertising and Hidden Hazards to Consumer Security and Data Privacy.’’ ............................. 106 EXHIBIT LIST 1. Increase Display Malvertising, chart prepared by RiskIQ ............................ 162 2. Proliferation & Impact, chart prepared by Online Trust Alliance ............... 163 3. Third-Party Website Calls on TDBank.com, chart prepared by the Per- manent Subcommittee on Investigations’ Minority Staff, Source: TDBank.com, Disconnect Private Browsing. .................................................. 164 (III) IV Page 4. Third-Party Website Calls on TMZ.com, chart prepared by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ Minority Staff, Source: TMZ.com, Dis- connect Private Browsing. ................................................................................ 165 5. Comparison of Third-Party Website Calls, chart prepared by the Perma- nent Subcommittee on Investigations’ Minority Staff, Source: TDBank.com, TMZ.com, Disconnect Private Browsing. ................................ 166 6. Good Money Gone Bad, Digital Thieves and the Hijacking of the Online Ad Business, A Report on the Profitability of Ad-Support Content Theft, February 2014, report prepared by the Digital Citizens Alliance ................ 167 7. a. Responses of Maneesha Mithal, Federal Trade Commission, to supple- mental questions for the record from Senator Carl Levin ....................... 196 b. Responses of Maneesha Mithal, Federal Trade Commission, to supple- mental questions for the record from Senator John McCain .................. 198 c. Responses of Maneesha Mithal, Federal Trade Commission, to supple- mental questions for the record from Senator Ron Johnson .................... 201 d. Responses of Maneesha Mithal, Federal Trade Commission, to supple- mental questions for the record from Senator Kelly Ayotte .................... 202 8. Responses of George Salem, Google, Inc., to supplemental questions for the record from Senator Ron Johmson ........................................................... 207 9. Responses of Alex Stamos, Yahoo! Inc., to supplemental questions for the record from Senator Ron Johnson ............................................................ 208 10. Responses of Craig Spiezle, Online Trust Alliance, to supplemental ques- tions for the record from Senator Ron Johnson ............................................. 210 ONLINE ADVERTISING AND HIDDEN HAZARDS TO CONSUMER SECURITY AND DATA PRIVACY THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2014 U.S. SENATE, PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Carl Levin, Chair- man of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senators Levin, McCaskill, McCain, Johnson, and Portman. Staff present: Daniel J. Goshorn, Counsel; Mary D. Robertson, Chief Clerk; Henry J. Kerner, Staff Director and Chief Counsel to the Minority; Jack Thorlin, Counsel to the Minority; Brad M. Patout, Senior Advisor to the Minority; Scott Wittmann, Research Assistant to the Minority; Samira Ahmed, Law Clerk; Rebecca Pskowski, Law Clerk; Kyle Brosnan, Law Clerk to the Minority; Nick Choate (Sen. McCaskill); Brooke Erickson and Mike Howell (Sen. Johnson); and Derek Lyons (Sen. Portman). OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN Senator LEVIN. Good morning, everybody. For almost a year, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has been investigating hidden hazards to consumers’ data privacy and security that re- sults from online advertising. Our Subcommittee operates in a very bipartisan way, and our practices and our rules provide that the Ranking Minority Member may initiate an inquiry, and our tradi- tion is for both sides of the aisle to work on investigations together, and our staffs work very closely together. This investigation was initiated and led by Senator McCain, so I would like to call on him to give his opening statement first, after which I will add a few additional remarks. But first I would like to commend Senator McCain for his leadership and his staff for their very hard work in addressing the facts and issues that are the subject of today’s hearing. Senator McCain. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR McCAIN Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you and your staff’s cooperation in conducting this important bipartisan investigation, which has been the hallmark of our relationship to- (1) 2 gether
Recommended publications
  • Malvertising - a Rising Threat to the Online Ecosystem
    2016 Proceedings of the Conference on Information Systems Applied Research ISSN: 2167-1508 Las Vegas, Nevada USA v9 n4266 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Malvertising - A Rising Threat To The Online Ecosystem Catherine Dwyer [email protected] Ameet Kanguri [email protected] Seidenberg School of Computer Science & Information Systems Pace University New York, New York, USA Abstract Online advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry that supports web content providers around the globe. A sophisticated technology known as real time bidding (RTB) dominates the advertising landscape, connecting advertisers with specific online customers of interest. With RTB, when web visitors connect to a site, advertising networks are notified of space available on that site along with what can be gleaned about the visitor. These combinations of space and visitor are auctioned, and the winning bid’s ad content is served to the web visitor. The entire process, from a visitor landing on a publisher’s page to ads being auctioned, selected and served, takes 200 milliseconds, the time needed to snap your fingers. This tightly choreographed interaction is a technical marvel, but one with built in risks. The just-in-time collaboration between ever changing technology providers gives an opening to malicious actors, who through devious means, use ad networks to deliver malware rather than ads. Delivering malware as an ad is called malvertising, and its presence on otherwise credible sites is dangerous, undermining the business models of trustworthy publishers and legitimate online advertisers. The purpose of this paper is to introduce malvertising, describe its relationship with online advertising, and identify the risks RTB and malvertising bring to the online ecosystem.
    [Show full text]
  • Transcript (299.22
    Internet of Things FTC Workshop November 19, 2013 Segment 4 Transcript >> WE'RE GOING TO GET STARTED. THIS IS PANEL THREE. THIS IS ON THE CONNECTED CARS. THIS IS PANEL THREE ON CONNECTED CARS. I'M KAREN JAGIELSKI AND I AM JOINED BY MY CO-MODERATOR. WIRE GOING TO INTRODUCE THE PANELISTS IN JUST A MINUTE. THIS IS A SHORT PANEL. WE ONLY HAVE AN HOUR, SO WE'RE GOING TO QUICKLY GET THROUGH INTRODUCTIONS AND THEN GET TO THE HEART OF THE SITUATION. SO WITH THAT, I'D ASK MY PANELISTS TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES AND TELL US JUST A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELVES. >> HI, MY NAME IS TADAYOSHI KOHNO AND I'M A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON. MY AREA OF EXPERTISE IS COMPUTER SECURITY. ONE FOCUS WE LOOK AT IS SECURITY FOR CYBER SYSTEMS FOR MEDICAL DEVICES, HOME AUTOMATION, CHILDREN TOISES AND FOR PURPOSES OF TODAY TALKING ABOUT THE WORK WE'VE BEEN DOING FOR THE SECURITY AND PRIVACY OF THE MODERN AUTOMOBILE. >> I'M CHRIS WOLF, FOUNDER AND CO-CHAIR OF THE FUTURE PRIVACY FORUM. I LEAD THE PRIVACY PRACTICE AT HOGAN LEVELS AT THE FUTURE PRIVACY FORUM. WE'VE BEEN DOING A LOT OF WORK IN THE FIVE YEARS WE'VE BEEN AROUND ON THE INTERNET OF THING STARTING WITH OUR EFFORTS ON THE CODE OF CONDUCT ON THE SMART GRID, MORE RECENTLY DEALING WITH RETAIL LOCATION STANDARDS AND WE ALSO HAVE A CONNECTED PAR PROJECT THAT'S GOING ON AT FBF. TODAY WE PUBLISHED A PAPER CALLED AN UPDATED PRIVACY PARADIGM FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS AND I GUESS I'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT DURING THE PANEL.
    [Show full text]
  • Testimony for House EC on Self-Driving Cars 11-15-2016 Final
    Statement of Laura MacCleery Vice President, Consumer Policy and Mobilization, Consumer Reports Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade “Disrupter Series: Self-Driving Cars” Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Summary • Traffic deaths on U.S. roads rose to 35,092 last year and are estimated to have jumped another 10% in the first half of 2016. This is a public health crisis. We urgently need to find ways to prevent more traffic deaths and injuries and meaningfully counter this trend. • Crashworthiness improvements should continue or even be accelerated as an accompaniment to technological advances, and defects and recalls should be more aggressively overseen and pursued as warranted by the facts. • Automated driving systems—intended to yield self-driving cars—are advancing rapidly, and may be part of the solution. However, there is much more work that needs to be done to test and demonstrate safety benefits and protect consumers from novel risks. • This is particularly true regarding cars with semi-autonomous features, which if deployed irresponsibly can give consumers a dangerously false sense of security. • As the industry’s regulator, NHTSA can ensure that companies put consumers first by setting robust safety standards. NHTSA’s recent guidance rightly covers a wide range of important subjects, but it is light on specific steps companies must take to assure safety. • To protect the public and build trust in automated driving features, Congress should provide NHTSA the resources to independently and thoroughly assess the safety of automated systems and better understand how drivers interact with these new features.
    [Show full text]
  • The Next Digital Decade Essays on the Future of the Internet
    THE NEXT DIGITAL DECADE ESSAYS ON THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET Edited by Berin Szoka & Adam Marcus THE NEXT DIGITAL DECADE ESSAYS ON THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET Edited by Berin Szoka & Adam Marcus NextDigitalDecade.com TechFreedom techfreedom.org Washington, D.C. This work was published by TechFreedom (TechFreedom.org), a non-profit public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. TechFreedom’s mission is to unleash the progress of technology that improves the human condition and expands individual capacity to choose. We gratefully acknowledge the generous and unconditional support for this project provided by VeriSign, Inc. More information about this book is available at NextDigitalDecade.com ISBN 978-1-4357-6786-7 © 2010 by TechFreedom, Washington, D.C. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Cover Designed by Jeff Fielding. THE NEXT DIGITAL DECADE: ESSAYS ON THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword 7 Berin Szoka 25 Years After .COM: Ten Questions 9 Berin Szoka Contributors 29 Part I: The Big Picture & New Frameworks CHAPTER 1: The Internet’s Impact on Culture & Society: Good or Bad? 49 Why We Must Resist the Temptation of Web 2.0 51 Andrew Keen The Case for Internet Optimism, Part 1: Saving the Net from Its Detractors 57 Adam Thierer CHAPTER 2: Is the Generative
    [Show full text]
  • Additional Karaoke Listings Updated February 2021! 1
    Artist Song Title 1975 Chocolate 1975, The Sincerity is Scary 5 Seconds of Summer Want you back 5 Seconds of Summer Easier ACDC Big Balls Adele All I Ask Adele Cold Shoulder Adele Melt My Heart to Stone Adele Million Years Ago Adele Sweetest Devotion Adele Hello Adele I Can't Make You Love Me Adele Love in The Dark Adele One and Only Adele Send My Love to Your New Lover Adele Take It All Adele When We Were Young Adele Remedy Adele Love Song Afroman Colt 45 AJR Burn the House Down Alabama Angels Among us Alabama Forty Hour Week Alabama Roll on Eighteen Wheeler Alabama Lady down on love Alaina, Lauren Road Less Traveled Alaina, Lauren Wings of an Angel Alaina, Lauren Ladies in the 90s Alaina, Lauren Getting Good Alaina, Lauren Other Side, The Aldean, Jason Tattoos on this town ADDITIONAL KARAOKE LISTINGS UPDATED FEBRUARY 2021! 1 Aldean, Jason Just Getting Started Aldean, Jason Lights Come On Aldean, Jason Little More Summertime, A Aldean, Jason This Plane Don't Go There Aldean, Jason Tonight Looks Good On You Aldean, Jason Gettin Warmed up Aldean, Jason Truth, The Aldean, Jason You make it easy Aldean, Jason Girl Like you Aldean, Jason Camouflage Hat Aldean, Jason We Back Aldean, Jason Rearview Town Aldean, Jason & Miranda Lambert Drowns The Whiskey Alice in Chains Man In The Box Alice in Chains No Excuses Alice in Chains Your Decision Alice in Chains Nutshell Alice in Chains Rooster Allan, Gary Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain) Allan, Gary Runaway Allen, Jimmie Best shot Anderson, John Swingin' Andress, Ingrid Lady Like Andress, Ingrid More Hearts Than Mine Angels and Airwaves Kiss & Tell Angston, Jon When it comes to loving you Animals, The Bring It On Home To Me Arctic Monkeys Do I Wanna Know Ariana Grande Breathin Arthur, James Say You Won't Let Go Arthur, James Naked Arthur, James Empty Space ADDITIONAL KARAOKE LISTINGS UPDATED FEBRUARY 2021! 2 Arthur, James Falling like the stars Arthur, James & Anne Marie Rewrite the Stars Arthur, James & Anne Marie Rewrite The Stars Ashanti Happy Ashanti Helpless (ft.
    [Show full text]
  • Maxfield, Lori R.; Ratley, Michael E. Case Studies of Talented
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 414 687 EC 306 032 AUTHOR Reis, Sally M.; Hebert, Thomas P.; Diaz, Eva I.; Maxfield, Lori R.; Ratley, Michael E. TITLE Case Studies of Talented Students Who Achieve and Underachieve in an Urban High School. Research Monograph 95120. INSTITUTION National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, Storrs, CT. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. PUB DATE 1995-09-00 NOTE 284p. CONTRACT R206R00001 PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC12 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Academic Achievement; Asian Americans; Black Students; Case Studies; Cultural Differences; Disadvantaged Youth; Family Environment; *Gifted; *High Achievement; High School Students; High Schools; Hispanic Americans; Homogeneous Grouping; Parent Participation; Poverty; Puerto Ricans; *Resilience (Personality); Self Esteem; Sex Differences; Social Support Groups; Student Characteristics; *Underachievement; *Urban Education; White Students ABSTRACT This 3-year study compared characteristics of high ability students who were identified as high achievers with students of similar ability who underachieved in school. The 35 students attended a large urban high school comprised of 60 percent Puerto Rican students, 20 percent African American, and the remainder White, Asian, and other. Qualitative methods were used to examine the perceptions of students, teachers, staff, and administrators concerning academic achievement. The study found that achievement and underachievement are not disparate concepts, since many students who underachieved had previously achieved at high levels and some generally high achieving students experienced periods of underachievement. A network of high achieving friends was characteristic of achieving students. No relationships were found between poverty and underachievement, between parental divorce and underachievement, or between family size and underachievement.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 | Page the LIGHTNING THIEF Percy Jackson and the Olympians
    THE LIGHTNING THIEF Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Book 1 Rick Riordan 1 | Page 1 I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a mat-ter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you. My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. 2 | Page Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that. I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.
    [Show full text]
  • The Center for Auto Safety
    CCEENNTTEERR FFOORR AAUUTTOO SSAAFFEETTYY 1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 330 Washington, DC 20009-1160 (202) 328-7700 Attachment A MISSION STATEMENT The Center for Auto Safety (CAS) is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization founded by Consumers Union and Ralph Nader in 1970 to provide consumers with a voice for auto safety and quality in Washington, D.C. and to assist owners of "lemon" vehicles to file complaints and obtain relief. Although CAS has a staff of less than a dozen people, its work is supported by approximately 20,000 members across the United States, and it is nationally recognized as a leader in the areas of automobile safety and consumer protection. CAS vigorously supports economically feasible motor vehicle safety policies that will reduce the risk of crash-related deaths and injuries. CAS serves as an important counterweight before federal policymakers to the automobile industry, whose positions on these safety issues are dictated by the desire to maximize profits for shareholders rather than to strike the proper balance between safety and other vehicle features. In fulfilling its mission, CAS is engaged in the following activities: Χ Researching defects in motor vehicles and monitoring defect investigations conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other federal agencies; Χ Obtaining information on potential vehicle safety defects from consumers, alerting NHTSA to these problems, and requesting that NHTSA undertake investigations; Χ Responding with comments to agency rulemaking
    [Show full text]
  • Edition 2019
    YEAR-END EDITION 2019 Global Headquarters Republic Records 1755 Broadway, New York City 10019 © 2019 Mediabase 1 REPUBLIC #1 FOR 6TH STRAIGHT YEAR UMG SCORES TOP 3 -- AS INTERSCOPE, CAPITOL CLAIM #2 AND #3 SPOTS For the sixth consecutive year, REPUBLIC is the #1 label for Mediabase chart share. • The 2019 chart year is based on the time period from November 11, 2018 through November 9, 2019. • All spins are tallied for the full 52 weeks and then converted into percentages for the chart share. • The final chart share includes all applicable label split-credit as submitted to Mediabase during the year. • For artists, if a song had split-credit, each artist featured was given the same percentage for the artist category that was assigned to the label share. REPUBLIC’S total chart share was 19.2% -- up from 16.3% last year. Their Top 40 chart share of 28.0% was a notable gain over the 22.1% they had in 2018. REPUBLIC took the #1 spot at Rhythmic with 20.8%. They were also the leader at Hot AC; where a fourth quarter surge landed them at #1 with 20.0%, that was up from a second place 14.0% finish in 2018. Other highlights for REPUBLIC in 2019: • The label’s total spin counts for the year across all formats came in at 8.38 million, an increase of 20.2% over 2018. • This marks the label’s second highest spin total in its history. • REPUBLIC had several artist accomplishments, scoring three of the top four at Top 40 with Ariana Grande (#1), Post Malone (#2), and the Jonas Brothers (#4).
    [Show full text]
  • Open Government: Lessons from America
    OPEN GOVERNMENT Lessons from America STEWART DRESNER May 1980 £3.00 OPEN GOVERNMENT: LESSONS FROM AMERICA CONTENTS Page Foreword Preface I Introduction 1 II The Open Government Concept and the British Government response 3 III Hew Open Government Legislation works in the United States 8 (1) Hie Freedom of Information Act 8 (2) The Privacy Act 25 (3) The Government in the Sunshine Act 31 IV What needs to be kept secret? 42 V Who uses the American Open Government Laws? 60 (1) Public Interest Groups 61 (2) The Media 69 (3) Individuals and Scholars 74 (4) Companies 76 (5) Civil Servants 80 VI Balancing Public Access to Government Information with the Protection of Individual Privacy 88 (1) The Issues 88 (2) The Protection of Personal Information by the U.S. Privacy Act 1974 91 (3) The Personal Privacy Exenption to the 101A 96 (4) The Relationship between the IOIA and the PA 98 (5) Public Access and Privacy Protection in an Administrative Programme 99 ii Page VII Ensuring Government Compliance with Public Access legislation 105 (1) Actaiinistrative Procedures 105 (2) Appeal Procedures 107 (3) Monitoring the Effectiveness of Public Access Legislation 117 VIII Ihe Costs and Benefits of Open Government 126 (1) National Security 127 (2) Constitutional Relationships 127 (3) Administrative and other Costs 132 IX Conclusion: Information, Democracy and Power 141 Bibliography i-xi FOREWORD Last year the related subjects of official secrets and freedom of information had a thorough but abortive airing. Mr. Clement Freud's Official Information Bill after a long and interesting committee stage became a victim of the general election.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary Updated – July 2014
    Glossary Updated – July 2014 Ad Blocker - A software utility which can be either a browser add-on or integrated within a browser which prevents advertisements from being displayed or third party content from being served. Examples include Adblock Plus and Noscript. Leading browsers offer limited controls to block third party content including Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and Mozilla Firefox. Address Specification (also known as: email address spec or addr-spec) - Addresses occur in several message header fields to indicate senders and recipients of messages. An address may either be an individual mailbox, or a group of mailboxes. [RFC 2822] Ad Exchange - Ad exchanges facilitate auction-based, real-time buying and serving of ads. Ad exchanges operate by serving as intermediaries between ad networks, publishers, and advertisers. Ad exchanges provide a sales channel to publishers and ad networks, as well as aggregated inventory to advertisers. Ad exchanges’ business models and practices may include features that are similar to those offered by ad networks. Ad Impression (or impressions) -Total number of times an ad (or malvertisement) is served on one or more sites. A single malvertising creative may be served to multiple users as a result of a single incident with upwards to 100,000 or more impressions, depending on the site(s) the malvertising is served on and the frequency of rotation of the ad on the site(s) and the life of the campaign. Ad Network - An ad network is a company that works with a group of Web sites and sells advertising space on their behalf. Ad networks provide an outsourced sales capability for publishers and a means to aggregate inventory and audiences from numerous sources in a single buying opportunity for media buyers.
    [Show full text]
  • Adverse Event Reporting System for Dietary Supplements: an Inadequate Safety Valve (OEI-01- 00-00180; 04/01)
    Department of Health and Human Services OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL Adverse Event Reporting For Dietary Supplements An Inadequate Safety Valve APRIL 2001 OEI-01-00-00180 OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL The mission of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), as mandated by Public Law 95-452, is to protect the integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services programs as well as the health and welfare of beneficiaries served by them. This statutory mission is carried out through a nationwide program of audits, investigations, inspections, sanctions, and fraud alerts. The Inspector General informs the Secretary of program and management problems and recommends legislative, regulatory, and operational approaches to correct them. Office of Evaluation and Inspections The Office of Evaluation and Inspections (OEI) is one of several components of the Office of Inspector General. It conducts short-term management and program evaluations (called inspections) that focus on issues of concern to the Department, the Congress, and the public. The inspection reports provide findings and recommendations on the efficiency, vulnerability, and effectiveness of departmental programs. OEI's Boston Regional Office prepared this report under the direction of Mark R. Yessian, Ph.D., Regional Inspector General and Joyce M. Greenleaf, M.B.A., Assistant Regional Inspector General. Principal OEI staff included: BOSTON HEADQUARTERS Laura C. McBride, Lead Analyst Elise Stein, Program Specialist Aimee L. Kasenga, Program Analyst Joseph Rutherford, Program Specialist Nancy L. London, Program Analyst Nicola Y. Pinson, Program Analyst To obtain copies of this report, please call the Boston Regional Office at (617) 565-1050. Reports are also available on the World Wide Web at our home page address: http://www.dhhs.gov/oig/oei EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PURPOSE To assess the effectiveness of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) adverse event reporting system for dietary supplements in protecting the American consumer.
    [Show full text]