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Obama's new plan lacks teeth by leaving out a "do not track" requirement

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President Barack Obama speaks during the AIPAC Policy Conference on March 4, 2012 in Washington, DC.

Cohen is the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America

This has been a tough few weeks for privacy rights on the Internet. Google changed its privacy policy so it can combine the information it collects from different sources including gmail, searches, and web browsing to make a more complete dossier on who we are and what we do online. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Google and other online advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of people who use Safari, the popular Apple web browser.

(MORE: New Google Privacy Policy May Violate European Law)

In the middle of these privacy blow-ups, the Obama administration announced a new set of online privacy policies a 62-page document called Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy. The White House has the right intentions, but it is not clear that these policies will have the teeth necessary to effectively protect peoples online privacy.

Its no great secret what the fighting over online privacy is about. Many Internet users want to be able to browse the Internet, use search engines, and view websites without anyone keeping a record of it. People do a lot of things online that they may want to keep secret for example, looking up symptoms of diseases (which health insurance companies may consider in writing coverage) and visiting non-mainstream political sites (which the government might want to know about).

When technology companies keep track of online activity, privacy problems radiate out in all directions. These companies could sell the data to people who will do harmful things with it including employers, who could use it to vet potential hires. This kind of data can easily end up in the hands of the government, which can subpoena it from the tech companies and suddenly, we are living in a Big Brother state.

(MORE: Can You Be Fired For Your Genes?)

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Will We Ever Get Strong Internet Privacy Rules?

GENEVA (Reuters) - Within three months of the launch of the Internet "pornography" domain ".xxx," 10 cases have been launched against Web pirates registering sites on it using the names of reputable companies and people, insiders said on Monday.

Sources at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported that among complainants to its dispute resolution system over .xxx -- usually called dot-triple x -- were banks, a jewelry business and an online shopping operation.

One individual complaint, against a site called femjoy.xxx, was brought by someone named George Streit, according to WIPO's dispute website. But the sources could not say if this was George Strait, the U.S. country music singer. WIPO officials could also not confirm whether the slightly different spelling was a typographical error.

WIPO, whose Director General Francis Gurry reported on Monday that cases of Web piracy, commonly called cybersquatting, rose 2.5 percent last year involving a record 4,781 sites with nearly 90 percent resolved in favor of complainants.

Many world-famous personalities, such as film star Tom Cruise and soccer player Wayne Rooney, and major corporations and brand names like Barclays Bank and Nestle, have in the past won cybersquatting cases in WIPO.

But these have all been brought against owners of sites registered under well-known and long-established domains such as dot-com, dot-int and dot-org, or the national suffixes identifying countries, including France's dot-fr.

Cyberquatters often register at a nominal fee using commonly known names or brands with the aim of selling them at a profit to the real name-owners. But they also use misleading sites to attract Web surfers to their own products or services.

Dot-triple x came into operation on December 6, 2011, after years of debate within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), on how to control the spread of pornography on the Web and make it manageable.

AID TO PARENTS

Supporters of the idea of a special domain argued that it would enable parents and employers to control more easily the sites to which their children and employees had access by cutting off a single domain rather than separate sites.

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Porn domain on Internet touches alarm buttons

The White House is following the lead of the European Union in advocating for new Internetprivacy laws which put consumers interests ahead of those of cyber-businesses, policy analysts told The Daily Caller.

According to a report released last week by the Obama administration, Internet browserpurveyors are using tracking technology to monitor consumers online behavior and lists of thewebsites they visit. That information is resold to marketers who send targeted, customized ads to the consumers computers or smartphones.

The new Internet privacy principles announced last week by the administration are intendedto lead to new laws protecting the public from some privacy-averse policies of companies likeApple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

This administrations proposal asks Congress to codify the new rights, which include grantingthe federal government more police power. The Federal Trade Commission would beempowered with direct enforcement authority to ensure consumer data privacy, according tothe strategy.

Overall, the Obama proposal includes seven principles to protect consumer privacy online, WhiteHouse aides told reporters last week in a telephone briefing.

The proposed rules would also include an enforceable code of conduct that Internet companieswould have to comply with, or face litigation or civil penalties, under the expanded FTC power.That agencys power is currently more limited.

A statute that allows the FTC to enforce the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights directly wouldprovide flexibility and permit the FTC to address emerging privacy issues through specificenforcement actions governed by applicable procedural safeguards, the White House said in itsreport.

The Obama administration proposal mimics policy ideas being put forth in Europe, DarrenHayes, a computer forensics and security expert at Pace University in New York, told TheDC.

The online privacy and data protection laws are aimed at providing a shield to consumersin Europe from unsavory marketing practices, Hayes said. Legal journals in the U.S. haveadvocated the European approach for years, he said, claiming its regulations were moresophisticated than the wild west mentality that has prevailed in U.S. Internet culture since the 1990s.

The administration and observers are referring to the proposal informally as the Do Not Trackmeasure.

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White House follows EU’s lead with new Internet ‘rules of the road’

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Telanetix, Inc. (OTC BB: TNIX), a leading cloud-based communications provider offering next generation voice services and solutions to the business market, today announced that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named Telanetix AccessLine-branded SIP Trunking Service as a recipient of the 2011 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award presented by INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

Telanetix AccessLine SIP Trunking Service replaces high-cost telephone lines with a high-quality, low-cost voice-over-IP alternative. AccessLines Quality by Design philosophy has elevated its SIP Trunking Service into a leadership position by ensuring high quality implementations from the first step of every installation.

We received this award as a result of providing exceptional service to customers, stated Doug Johnson, Telanetix CEO. At AccessLine, we believe that business communications dont have to be expensive or complicated. Thats why every SIP Trunking implementation is backstopped by the assurance of success through our certification process. This process yields a simple, successful customer service migration and new activations for our channel partners and ultimately, happy customers.

Taking steps to advance IP Communications technology and provide real solutions has once again earned Telanetix recognition from the editors of INTERNET TELEPHONY and an INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award, said Erik Linask, Group Editorial Director of INTERNET TELEPHONY. Telanetix SIP Trunking has excelled indelivering cutting edge solutions. Its customers are extremely pleased and have offered their testaments of support.

We are proud to present Telanetix with a 2011 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award. Telanetix SIP Trunking has proven its outstanding contribution to IP communications and provided winning solutions for its customers, stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC.

Previously, Telanetix was awarded the TMC Labs Innovation Award in 2010, INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award in 2009 and Product of the year award in 2008.

For more information, please visit http://www.tmcnet.com.

About Telanetix, Inc. Telanetix is a leading cloud based hosted communications solutions provider offering next generation voice services to the business market. The company's voice offerings, powerful yet cost-effective, are marketed under the "AccessLine" brand, and give business customers a flexible and easy to use alternative to today's traditional phone service. Telanetix offers flexible calling solutions, a simpler installation experience, and a greater range of support options than traditional telecom providers. Additional information may be found at the Telanetix corporate website, http://www.telanetix.com.

For more information on Telanetix and its communication solutions, please contact Charles Messman or Todd Kehrli of the MKR Group at (323) 468-2300, or visit http://www.accessline.com.

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Telanetix Receives 2011 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award

Internet players are set to make a big splash at the world's biggest IT fair opening in Germany Monday, likely to widen the event's appeal from a traditional devotion to pure technology.

While CeBIT, held in Hanover, tends to focus on the business side of technology, it has been overshadowed recently by the gadget wizardry unveiled at other showcases in Las Vegas, Berlin or Barcelona.

"It's not the attendance figures that count but the contracts which are signed," Reinhold Umminger, vice-president of CeBIT's organising company, stressed, ahead of the March 6-9 fair in the northern German city.

But the Internet with all its new possibilities looks set to muscle in on this year's event with some big hi-tech names due to attend after having long skipped Hanover on the annual calendar of technology events.

South Korea's Samsung, Japan's Sharp are due to return. Microsoft, the IT giant which has just launched the test version of a new generation of its Windows operating system, Windows 8, will all also be represented.

And the business networking website Xing will attend for the first time.

Google chief Eric Schmidt will deliver the official opening speech late Monday, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will also address the fair, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose country is guest of honour.

Schmidt may well use the occasion to promote Google+, the Internet titan's Facebook rival, after The Wall Street Journal recently commented that "Google+ is a virtual ghost town compared with Facebook".

Among other likely highlights is new software that shows in real time what is causing excitement on the Web by reflecting on screen the themes most discussed by 150 million sources including social networks.

Others include a virtual "eraser" for wiping out traces of potentially embarrassing mistakes on the Internet, a system for protecting smartphones from eavesdropping and a mobile device for asthmatics to assess the air quality.

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Internet muscles in on world's biggest IT fair