Media Advisory: Carnegie Mellon's Lorrie Cranor to Participate on Panel About Technical Mechanics of Online Advertising

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May 21, 2010, 03:46 ET

PITTSBURGH, May 21 /PRNewswire/ --

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020422/CMULOGO )

Event: Carnegie Mellon University's Lorrie Cranor will join a panel of experts sponsored by The Progress & Freedom Foundation to discuss the privacy issues swirling around the technical mechanics of online advertising. The panel meets at a time when the business objectives of advertisers and online publishers have sparked concerns by privacy groups that too much user data is being collected by search engines, social networks and other sites for targeted advertising.

Cranor, director of Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and associate professor of computer science and engineering and public policy, said the panel will discuss challenges and opportunities for empowering privacy-sensitive consumers to manage their online privacy.

Federal regulators and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) are working to draft legislation that would offer privacy protections to consumers without breaking the business models of online publishers and advertisers.

In addition to Cranor, other panel members include Ari Schwartz, vice president and chief operating officer at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Shane Wiley, senior director of Privacy and Data Governance at Yahoo; and Berin Szoka, a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications on public policy.

When: Noon to 2 p.m., Monday, May 24.

Where: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515

About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the fine arts. More than 11,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, titled "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements.