and the humorous dave barry called it the most popular government program since the elvis stamp. with do not track it is conceptually similar insofar as we are, we are calling for something that would help insure consumer privacy and consumer choice, but it's different. we didn't want to have a main registry of numbers because we thought that could be harvested by spammers and spyware malefactors. we also thought that the technology was just about there or is about to be there for the ability to block third party tracking from consumers. we thought it could be done voluntarily and done through the browsers. and so we're bringing on a wonderful, tony, you probably know this, technologist named ed felton. he's a princeton engineering consultant to be our chief technologiologist. he was very, very involved in thinking through the do not track registry and in reviewing the whole privacy report. >> host: this is c-span's "communicators" program, our guest is jon leibowitz of the federal trade commission. we're talking about the preliminary staff report on online privacy. tony romm of

the humorous dave barry called it the most effective government program since the elvis stamp. and right before we issued this report, a very respected washington lobbyist called me up. and he said if you issued this report and you even call for a do not track mechanism t will be the end of the christmas season. you know there will be, you know, internet purchases will go down enormously because americans will be afraid to use buy goods on-line it turns out this has been one of the best christmas seasons in recent years. and i think that there is a way to allow targeted marketinging for those people who want it. and also allow people to opt out for those people without want that. and don't want targeted ads. >> and i wasn't that lobbyist. >> you were not the lobbyist, that is exactly right. >> but i think the chairman makes a great point which is that we do have to be careful. because we are coming august of a fantastic christmas shopping season. and the on-line ad industry is about to finish up its best year ever. and so there's not a failure of marketplace. what we need to do