February 2, 2000

The Honorable Robert Pitofsky
Chairman
Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20580

Dear Mr. Chairman:

    We are writing to request that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) immediately initiate an investigation to determine whether certain medical web sites may be violating section 5 of the FTC Act which makes "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce" unlawful.

    The February 1, 2000, Washington Post reported that a study conducted by the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University found that "Medical Web sites say they protect the privacy of visitors, but they often share the information they collect with other companies...." The article quotes a researcher involved in the study, Janlori Goldman, who said "We found that almost across the board, the privacy practices [of these medical web sites] did not match the policies." Ms. Goldman also said that the 21 leading health sites that were reviewed have their privacy policies prominently displayed, but the companies involved do not follow through on their privacy pledges, and as a result, "they’re giving people a false sense of confidence and a false sense of trust."

    Last year, strong consumer opposition forced Republican managers of the financial services modernization legislation to delete provisions that would have potentially given unrelated third parties and others access to personally identifiable medical information without a consumer’s consent. The debate concerning this matter has sparked even broader consumer concern about the security and privacy of medical data. Recently released results of a poll conducted for the California HealthCare Foundation demonstrate that 75% of people surveyed are concerned about health web sites giving their personal data to other parties and that 17% say they do not use on-line services for health information because of privacy concerns. Furthermore, the poll showed that 80% of people surveyed said the existence of a privacy policy on a web site makes them more willing to use the Internet for medical information and services.

    Clearly, consumers are relying on medical web sites and the organizations that operate them to practice what they profess. If these privacy policies are, in fact, not being followed by those entities who claim to have adopted them, consumers are being misled and harmed.

    The FTC Act’s prohibition against "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" was enacted to protect consumers against just the kind of misleading representations in which the medical web sites reviewed in this study appear to be engaging. As you will recall, last year the FTC brought its first enforcement action involving Internet privacy against GeoCities’ web site for similar practices. The sensitivity of personal medical information and the threat misuse of such information may be to employment, creditworthiness, insurability, as well as personal privacy and financial independence, demands that consumers be protected.

    Therefore, we request that you direct the staff of the FTC to begin immediately an investigation to determine the extent to which the sites reviewed in this investigation are violating section 5 of the FTC Act, and that you take all steps necessary to stop any such violations from occurring.

Sincerely,

 
Prepared by the Democratic staff of the Commerce Committee
2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
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