House Committee Holds Hearing on Deep Packet Inspection
In testimony before a Congressional Committee, EPIC Director Marc Rotenberg urged lawmakers to address the growing threat to online privacy of new tracking techniques. Mr. Rotenberg said, "From the user perspective, the threats to privacy online are increasing. Unregulated data collection continues. Privacy policies are opaque and ineffective. Users are unable to exercise any meaningful control over the personal information that is obtained by firms when they visit sites, purchase online, or participate in the rapidly growing world of social networking." EPIC warned that these practices also pose a threat to technical standards that are necessary to protect network integrity, as well as the revenue of web publishers. The use of Deep Packet Inspection is growing in the face of no government regulation on its use.
'Deep packet inspection' could become the target of legislation, Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews.com, April 24, 2009
