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IP: They will know where you are thinking of going
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 10:31:26 -0500
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 10:21:46 -0400 To: farber () cis upenn edu From: Lorrie Faith Cranor <lorrie () research att com> Sabre isn't the only online travel agency that may become big brother. At the Department of Commerce's Public Meeting on Internet Privacy two weeks ago, Reid Detchon of the Interactive Travel Services Association said that the major airlines are pressuring online travel agencies to enter into agreements that would require the travel agents to monitor all visitors to their Web sites and pass the data along to the airlines. This includes requiring all visitors to register with name, address, and passport number before they even decide to purchase a ticket! ITSA has a press release on this topic at http://www.interactivetravel.org/news.htm I'm attaching it below: ------------------------------------------ NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release: June 23, 1997 Contact: Ed Rothschild 202-879-9317 rothschild () interactivetravel org Online Travel Services Criticize Airline Efforts To Obtain Detailed Consumer Information Washington Calling attention to efforts by the nations major airlines to obtain detailed information on consumers, the executive director of the Interactive Travel Services Association (ITSA) today criticized such efforts as a strategy to invade consumer privacy and undermine effective competition. In a statement before a Department of Commerce summit meeting dealing with privacy issues on the Internet, Reid Detchon, executive director of ITSA, said that the association will protect the privacy of consumers by adopting guidelines proposed by the Online Privacy Alliance. Many ITSA members already are in compliance. At the same time, however, Detchon warned of new, so-called recommended practices issued by the Air Transport Association, the trade association of major airlines. The airlines want members of my association to gather and provide them with specific information about our customers at a level far more detailed than what has been traditionally required to buy an airline ticket, said Detchon. This step is alarming, continued Detchon, because agents have little choice but to comply with a demand from their suppliers. In a May 1998 document, the ATA recommends that electronic agents: - Track individual users usage - Collect appropriate information about a user (e.g., name, address, phone number, passport number, etc.) upon registration of that user - Assign a unique identifier to each individual that uses the tool to query information from an airline via electronic means. The identifier should be easily tied to a particular user The airlines describe these recommended practices as intended to prevent imagined e-commerce abuse. However, these practices could also enable the airlines to build databases of customer identities, interests, and travel histories databases to help them capture those customers for themselves, said Detchon. The airlines, Detchon observed, have been moving aggressively to capture passenger traffic on their proprietary web sites and have cut commissions to online travel agents their competitors for that traffic below what is in most cases the cost of doing business. Without external intervention, agents are powerless to resist. ------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- Lorrie Faith Cranor lorrie () research att com AT&T Labs-Research 973-360-8607 180 Park Ave. Room A241 FAX 973-360-8809 Florham Park, NJ 07932 http://www.research.att.com/~lorrie/
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- IP: They will know where you are thinking of going Dave Farber (Jul 08)