what about the Online Privacy Alliance? (Score 1)

Real is obviously not getting a clue so what about sending feedback to the Online Privacy Alliance that they are so proudly associated with? I checked them out and they seem to be an inflated multi-committee PR move to self police privacy issues but if they start to get gripes about a member maybe they can do something. Interestingly they have no obvious e-mail contacts but after digging I found that you can e-mail Christine about OPA questions at the webmaster address ([e-mail])

"Christine,
I am a little unclear about the function of your alliance. It sounds like you have created a self regulating body that can do whatever it wants with personal information as long as it is somehow disclosed in the privacy policy. My concern is the situation with Real Networks. They are still farming user information in what I consider to be rather insidious. They had problems with their Real Jukebox product and apparently fixed it but now their appropriately named "demon" program sends information (file names and URLs) of any program I download to realnetworks/netzip. This is unacceptable. I don't care if this is being used anonymously for marketing or if they are creating a personal profile to figure out how my children are going to look. I don't like it! As a member of your alliance you are responsible for their actions because they are touting membership to comfort concerned consumers (ME). It's not helping and is only serving to make me question the validity of your organization. I hope you are able to do something about this issue.

Sincerely

ANONYMOUS

P.S. You would think that an organization with "seek input and support for Alliance initiatives from consumer, business, academic, advocacy and other organizations that share its commitment to privacy protection." in it's mission statement would consider having a couple of e-mail contacts on the site."

Dop Christine a line: [e-mail]