DoubleClick Inc. on Wednesday revealed the composition of its newly-formed
consumer privacy advisory board, a body the company decided to form after
being hit by criticism over its handling of consumer information.
Robert Abrams, former New York State Attorney General and a partner at the
New York law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, was the first to be appointed
to the board, when he was named chairman in March.
Joining him will be: Lori Fena, chairman and co-founder of TRUSTe; Daniel Weitzner, technology and
society domain leader of the World Wide Web
Consortium; Elizabeth Lascoutx, director of the Children’s Advisory
Review Unit and vice president of the Council
of Better Business Bureaus; Robert Litan, vice president and director
of economic studies at The Brookings
Institution; David Stazer, vice president of product development and
strategy and co-founder of PlanetOut.com; Harriet Pearson,
director of public affairs for IBM; and
Stewart Baker, a partner at Steptoe &
Johnson and former General Counsel of the National Security Agency.
“This Board is made up of an excellent cross section of consumer advocates
and online privacy experts,” said Abrams.
“I am excited to begin the Board’s work of advising DoubleClick on how they
can live up to the highest standards of protecting consumer privacy.”
Privacy advocates, though, questioned the usefulness of such an advisory board.
“The team has a lot of talent, but none of them are privacy advocates,” said Jason Catlett, president of the JunkBusters advocacy group.
“Nobody should expect this group of people — or any group of people who serve at the pleasure of DoubleClick’s board — to make them protect privacy.”
The board will meet for the first time on June 2.
