An important policy issue for the Internet

The Pew Internet and American Life Project at http://www.pewinternet.org/ has a July 11, 2008 Commentary on Identity entitled, "Do we have a right to online privacy?" This is certainly an important policy issue for the Internet.
The Commentary is about a U. S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the privacy implications of online advertising. The posting states that Google gains most of its money from these ads which subsidize the free services to its users. It reports that online consumers are "exposed only to ads deemed relevant to them - or to what their data say about them." The Commentary details that on a search, Google will typically "collect your IP address, operating system, browser type, requested search query and cookies."
The posting states that most Internet users, like me for instance, are not fully aware of how these big Internet corporations gather and utilize this information. Privacy experts, such as the Center for Democracy and Technology also were present at the hearing. They are concerned that this information could be pieced together to personally identify users, and might be misused by the government or other entities.
The U. S. Congress is trying to determine privacy protections on how information is collected and utilized. We all need to increase our awareness of this issue and keep pressure on our elected officials in Washington to do what's in the public interest.