COMMENTS OF GROCERY MANUFACTURERS OF AMERICA CONCERNING CONSUMER ON-LINE PRIVACY-P954807 GROCERY
MANUFACTURERS OF AMERICA 1010 WISCONSIN AVE., NW April 15, 1997 Secretary Re: Public Workshop on Consumer Information Privacy, 62 Fed. Reg. 10271, (March 6, 1997) Dear Sir or Madam: The Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) is pleased to provide these comments in response to the Commission's March 6, 1997, Federal Register notice. GMA is an 89-year-old national trade association comprised of more than 130 companies that manufacture food and packaged consumer goods sold at retail grocery stores throughout the country. GMA member companies employ over 2.9 million people nationwide, have annual sales in excess of $360 billion, and are responsible for more than 85 percent of the packaged foods sold at retail in the United States. GMA's members, like many industries, are increasingly operating websites on the Internet as a means of interacting with American consumers. For this reason, the Commission's planned publish workshop will be of considerable importance to GMA's members. Accordingly, GMA requests that it be permitted to participate in one of the workshop sessions - namely, Session 3 (dealing with children's on-line privacy). GMA believes this session will be particularly important as the Commission explores ways to ensure that privacy policies on the Internet provide protection to consumers, including children, without impeding the free flow of useful and truthful information. Within the next few weeks (and certainly before the Commission's public workshop in June), the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus intends to issue guidelines designed to address Internet privacy issues as they relate to children. It is our opinion that these Guidelines, which were developed with the input and assistance of a broad class of interested persons and organizations, should provide answers to many of the Commission's concerns related to children that were raised in the Commission's March 6 Federal Register notice. Accordingly, GMA respectfully requests the opportunity to file an additional comment with the Commission after the CARU Guidelines have been finalized. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or if you need additional information. Sincerely yours, James H. Skiles cc: Toby Milgrom Levin, Esquire |