Carnegie Mellon Engineering

Media Advisory: Carnegie Mellon's Lorrie Cranor to Participate on Panel About Technical Mechanics of Online Advertising

May 21, 2010

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

Event: Carnegie Mellon University's Lorrie Cranor will join a panel of experts sponsored by The Progress & Freedom Foundation to discuss the privacy issues swirling around the technical mechanics of online advertising. The panel meets at a time when the business objectives of advertisers and online publishers have sparked concerns by privacy groups that too much user data is being collected by search engines, social networks and other sites for targeted advertising.

Cranor, director of Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and associate professor of computer science and engineering and public policy, said the panel will discuss challenges and opportunities for empowering privacy-sensitive consumers to manage their online privacy.

Federal regulators and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) are working to draft legislation that would offer privacy protections to consumers without breaking the business models of online publishers and advertisers.

In addition to Cranor, other panel members include Ari Schwartz, vice president and chief operating officer at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Shane Wiley, senior director of Privacy and Data Governance at Yahoo; and Berin Szoka, a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications on public policy.

When: Noon to 2 p.m., Monday, May 24.

Where: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515

Listen to the briefing.