President Barack Obama’s announcement Friday that a panel...

officials -- led by Counselor to the President John Podesta -- “will reach out to privacy experts, technologists and business leaders, and look [at] how the challenges inherent in big data are being confronted by both the public and private sectors; whether we can forge international norms on how to manage this data; and how we can continue to promote the free flow of information in ways that are consistent with both privacy and security.” The Direct Marketing Association said in a Friday statement it’s “disappointed to see the responsible use of consumer data for marketing purposes conflated with ‘government surveillance.'” Data-driven marketing -- which includes data brokers (CD Dec 20 p6) -- is not related to “issues around government surveillance,” the association said, pointing to its “Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice” (http://bit.ly/1juOeqi), which “ensure that consumers have robust transparency and meaningful choices about how data is used for marketing purposes,” said the statement. Software and Information Industry Association President Ken Wasch called Obama’s remarks “thoughtful,” but said in a statement, “we are disappointed he did not go further in the area of increased transparency.” Data-driven “innovation is an economic driver for the U.S. and global economies, providing enormous benefits for individuals, businesses and society,” Wasch said. Jeff Chester, executive director for digital privacy advocate Center for Digital Democracy, said the establishment of the big data and privacy research group does not go far enough. Obama’s big data review group “isn’t the same as real safeguards limiting the collection and use of our commercial data -- and which can be accessed by the NSA and others,” he said in a statement. “Meanwhile, companies such as Google and Facebook are getting a free pass to our data."