Acknowledging consumers and privacy advocates concerned with how personal information is gathered and used, major Internet companies are vowing to do a better job of letting Internet users know about their online privacy.
Yahoo! has launched a privacy center where Net users can view information about the company's practices and privacy policies. Software giant Microsoft announced it would offer an update to its Internet Explorer 5.5 Web browser, allowing users to specify which "cookies" -- data packages that can identify and track individual users -- they want to accept.
And Internet media services company Engage gave the Internet Engineering Task Force -- an international community that monitors the Internet's development -- an outline of its privacy standard, CNET News reports.
"Privacy-enhancement technologies have been in development for some time. This is just the beginning of the first wave of real products," Ari Schwartz, privacy policy analyst for the Center for Democracy and Technology, told CNET.
"These are all partial answers," Schwartz continued, "as long as we start including education, privacy-enhancing technologies and baseline legislation to do the enforcement that's necessary."
The initiatives follow criticism of the Clinton Administration for using cookies to identify and track visitors to its anti-drug Web site, Freevibe.com. The drug policy office has stopped using the cookies by White House decree, and has issued new regulations regarding the government's use of tracking technology.
Also this week, the House of Representatives approved an amendment mandating the Postal Service, the Treasury Department and other federal agencies to post information on their own privacy efforts for Internet surfers, CNET reports. The Senate is scheduled to debate the provision.
The Internet Explorer update will provide a pop-up window that lets people see if a cookie is from the site they visited or a third-party advertising company. Surfers can opt out and receive no cookies at all, but this may also restrict what, if anything, they can view on certain sites.
Engage recommends digital labels on cookies showing how the information will be used, and allowing people to specify what cookies are acceptable, CNET reports.
"This is the first time we're seeing Microsoft develop a privacy-enhancing technology where they are receiving consumer feedback--and that's a good sign for the future of privacy on the Internet," Schwartz told CNET.
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