Today IEF Executive Director Tim Lordan addressed the Federal Trade Commission’s “Mobile Marketplace” hearing on Location-Based Services.The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee has a long history of addressing the location based privacy and safety issues (See Wireless Task Force). Lordan applauded the Commission on it’s efforts to bring itself up to speed on the mobile and location issues. The Commission can serve an extremely important oversight role in an extremely rapidly evolving marketplace.

Also, Lordan announced the 2nd annual “Location Privacy and Safety Summit” in October 2008 in Washington, DC. The Summit will be hosted with George Washington University Law School and the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. The summit will bring together key industry players, academics, NGOs and government policymakers.

We are pleased that the Telegraph, one of the UK’s leading news papers, has listed GetNetWise.org as one of it’s “101 Most Useful Web sites” this past week. In fact, GetNetWise comes in as number seven. This honor is similar to past acknowledgments by PC Magazine listing GetNetWise as one of the “Top 100 Classic Web sites“. We are delighted to share this recognition with our supporters, friends and colleagues.

On the policymaker education side of IEF Tim Lordan was asked by Federal Trade Commission staff to participate in a “roundtable discussion on phishing education” today, April 1, 2008. The FTC drew in experts on cyber security and consumer education for the event at their New Jersey Avenue meeting space.

Later in the month Tim Lordan will address the FTC’s “Mobile Marketing” Town Hall meeting on the topic of location privacy and safety. The Internet Caucus Advisory Committee has developed significant expertise in this area by looking at location issues since 2001. The ICAC hosted a major summit on the topic last year and is planning a follow-up location privacy and safety event this coming year.