Privacy Issue Revisited

Cable World, Sept 29, 2003

Byline: K. C. NEEL

Several city regulators, including the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission in Oregon, have called for changes in Comcast's privacy policies. This may or may not have prompted a response from the MSO, which has announced that it is in the process of reevaluating its privacy policies.

The MSO told the commission that it plans to make its policies more clear to customers and aims to revamp them over the next few months, according to Portland cable administrator David Olson.

"It doesn't matter what is spurring them to redo their policies," he says, "as long as they do it. The policies as they stand now allow Comcast the latitude to do whatever they want with customers' data, which defeats the purpose of having privacy rules in the first place."

Portland area regulators are willing to wait and see what new policies Comcast puts into place before taking action against the MSO, Olson says. They are also in the process of crafting local privacy rules, which Comcast may be pressured into adhering to if the MSO's new policies aren't stringent enough.

Comcast's chief privacy officer Gerald Lewis says he is evaluating the MSO's privacy policies now - a practice the company undertakes every year about this time. Revamped rules are expected early next year.

"We are gathering input from several cities, customers and company employees" in an effort to make sure the company's privacy policies are fair and equitable, he says.

"We've both been upfront and responsive with each other," Lewis says of the Portland regulators. "We're happy to have the kind of dialogue we've had in Portland with all our franchise authorities."