Group hopes to shape nation's privacy policy

AT&T is funding a group run by some of the nation's top privacy experts that aims to influence policy in the Obama administration and develop best practices on privacy for businesses.

Called Future of Privacy, the organization will be announced Wednesday. Its Web site, www.futureofprivacy.org, is set to go live Monday.

One of the group's co-founders, Jules Polonetsky, said he left his job as chief privacy officer at AOL to run Future of Privacy. He also had worked at DoubleClick, which was acquired by Google last year.

Technology on the Internet has become so advanced, and privacy so uncertain, that no one knows what to do about it, Polonetsky said.

"We are at a turning point," he said. "We will either be slaves to our data or be served by our data."

AT&T did not return calls seeking comment, but the group's co-founders and another participant said AT&T had committed funding.

The group also is seeking funding from other companies and has a 23-member advisory board that includes people from Facebook, LexisNexis and advocacy groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology. A professor and privacy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, Peter Swire, who also is advising President-elect Barack Obama, is on the board as well.

The group hopes to propose a privacy agenda for the Obama administration next week and plans to publish research and reports. One of the first topics will be to show people what happens to their data on the Internet.

"We're going to try to bring transparency and document what's going on in a way that consumers and policymakers can understand," he said. "We're going to try to drive practices that enhance consumer controls and stop squabbling about opt in and opt out."

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