ClickZ: Claria Hires Privacy Officer
IPO hopeful Claria hired a lawyer as chief privacy officer. D. Reed Freeman Jr., a professor at George Mason University, has worked at the Federal Trade Commission and a sizable D.C. law firm. The move mirrors one made by DoubleClick years ago, when that Internet firm was feeling legislative heat from privacy advocates in Congress due to over-wrought concerns about browser cookies tracking user behavior.
For a short time, DoubleClick executives back then thought that the privacy concerns might even help its business, as an up-and-coming competitor, Engage, was then demonstrating a cookie-based behavioral targeting mechanism for which DoubleClick did not have an alternative. But congressmen laid into DoubleClick nevertheless, more because it was the most well known Internet network than because it was the worst offender of delicate privacy sensibilities. Claria, as the largest adware network, may find itself in a similar position.
