It may be, as Wired's Declan McCullagh says, a lot like becoming a mother-in-law, because you get to tell everyone why they're wrong and no one has to listen. But the politically leaning still vie for spots on federal commissions - and once in awhile, those who don't apply get them, even if they're picked for privacy panels while their Web companies have no stated privacy policies.
Last Friday, the FTC picked the players - 40 out of some 180 applicants - for its commission on privacy and security standards. They passed by the veterans in the privacy advocacy world in favor of someone who hadn't even applied for the panel - NetNoir CEO E. David Ellington, who chairs an online services firm whose target audience and clientele is African-Americans.
"It probably didn't hurt," McCullagh writes, "that Ellington gave $2,500 to Democratic candidates - including $1,000 to Al Gore - during the last two years, according to Federal Election Commission records. An FTC staff member wouldn't say why Ellington was chosen except to say the commission wanted to 'make its best efforts' to make sure the group was representative."
McCullagh also points up an intriguing wrinkle in the Ellington choice - NetNoir asks visitors for their home addresses, birthdates, and telephone numbers, but has no posted privacy policy saying what they would or would not do with such information.
Which runs afoul, he says, of the Better Business Bureau's ethical conduct principles for Web businesses, to say nothing of FTC guidelines.
Ellington, though, isn't the only non-applicant who got a spot on the privacy panel. NCR Corporation's Robert Henderson was named, replacing his colleague Peter Reid - who did apply for a spot.
