Executive Summary

Federal Trade Commission recommends that Congress enact legislation that "would set forth a basic level of privacy protection for consumer-oriented commercial websites" in a May 22 report. Legislation should require sites to provide "clear and conspicuous notice" of their information collection practices, to offer consumers choices as to how their personal identifying information is used, to offer consumers "reasonable access" to the information a site has collected about them and to take "reasonable steps" to protect the security of the information. The commission based its recommendation on a survey of commercial sites' information practices, which found only 20% of 335 sites sampled randomly implement all four information practice principles and that 42% of the 91 "most popular" groups of sites do. Among the randomly selected sites were several that offer online prescription filling, including Merck-Medco.com, More.com and Costco.com