[...] the actions of Twitter and others show that when companies are mindful of basic privacy principles articulated in the Obama Administration’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and blueprint as they design their services, the very same creative energy that has led to the development of extraordinary new Internet technologies can also help to protect Americans’ privacy.
[Danny Weitzner is the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Internet Policy]

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RT @danielg280: Microsoft's Social Network So.cl, Is Officially Live #privacy” Via @PrivacyMemes #yam

The very scary future of state control, censorship, and totalitarianism in the age of the internet. A presentation from Amesys, a subsidiary of Bull S.A. "explained the significance of Eagle to a government seeking to control activities inside its borders. Warning of an “increasing need of high-level intelligence in the constant struggle against criminals and terrorism,” the document touted Eagle’s ability to capture bulk Internet traffic passing through conventional, satellite, and mobile phone networks, and then to store that data in a filterable and searchable database. This database, in turn, could be integrated with other sources of intelligence, such as phone recordings, allowing security personnel to pick through audio and data from a given person all at once, in real time or by historical time stamp. In other words, instead of choosing targets and monitoring them, officials could simply sweep up everything, sort it by time and target, and then browse through it later at their leisure. The title of the presentation -- ”From Lawful to Massive Interception” -- gestured at the vast difference between so-called lawful intercept (traditional law enforcement surveillance based on warrants for specific phone numbers or IP addresses) and what Amesys was offering."

Although Twitter tracks its users too — albeit in a much less aggressive way — the company has decided to take a different route. It announced Thursday that it is joining Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox Web browser, and giving its users the ability to opt-out of being tracked in any way through Twitter.

Twitter is doing this by enabling the Do Not Track feature in the Firefox browser that enables people to opt-out of cookies that collect personal information and any third-party cookies, including those used for advertising. The Do Not Track functionality will only work if a Web site agrees to acknowledge it.

Ed Felten , chief technology officer for the Federal Trade Commission, announced Twitter’s involvement in the privacy feature at a New York Internet Week privacy panel .

The announcement occurred during a session titled, “Opting in to Do Not Track: A morning mini-conference on privacy, tracking and more.”

In a message on Twitter , the company confirmed the FTC’s announcement.

Basically, every time you visit a site that has a follow button or a hovercard, Twitter is recording your behavior. It is transparently watching your movements and storing them somewhere for later use. Right now, that data will make better suggestions for accounts you might want to follow. But what other things can it be used for? The privacy implications of such behavior by a company so large are sweeping and absolute.

If tracking your behavior transparently is acceptable in the pursuit of a better user experience, why isn’t it also acceptable in the pursuit of monetization? Is it okay for Twitter to sell your web browsing history to advertisers? The company is playing with a very slippery slope.

I’m not particularly surprised that Twitter is doing this kind of data analysis or collection. Facebook is almost certainly doing the same thing. What has me surprised is that Twitter is overtly admitting to it without considering the privacy implications. How many people have access to the data Twitter is collecting? Can any Twitter employee who has production database access look at Mitt Romney’s browsing history? Can they look at your browsing history?

These kinds of questions are extremely important, but there are no answers.