Laugh of the Day: White House Telecom Adviser Proposes Privacy Code of Conduct

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the top telecom adviser to the White House, has laughably proposed a code of conduct for apps:

WASHINGTON — Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling issued the following statement on the multistakeholder process to develop the first privacy code of conduct aimed at improving disclosures on mobile devices.

“NTIA is pleased that today a diverse group of stakeholders reached a seminal milestone in the efforts to enhance consumer privacy on mobile devices. We encourage all the companies that participated in the discussion to move forward to test the code with their consumers. I want to congratulate all of the participants, who through their commitment and dedication have demonstrated the promise and importance of the multistakeholder policy-making process.”

What makes this laughable is the fact that any privacy policy that is developed will almost certainly take the form of “Signatories to this contract agree to share no personal information about users with anybody, except the National Security Agency (NSA), for whom it will be mandatory to share with.”