DoubleClick Inc., New York has posted a new privacy policy at its Web site for public review, and is soliciting feedback from the privacy community, public policymakers and consumers for the next thirty days.

Feedback was immediate from privacy advocates.

In a letter dated June 1 and addressed to DoubleClick president Kevin Ryan, Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp. said that he had “repeatedly asked DoubleClick to show the 88 million Americans what is kept in the Internet advertising company’s Abacus Direct database about them,” and has been met with repeated refusal.

“How could keeping billions of records in secret electronic dossiers constitute executing business in “the most open manner possible?” Catlett wrote, referring to a quote issued Friday by Jules Polonetsky, DoubleClick’s chief privacy officer.

DoubleClick said that revisions to its policy would be based on feedback received.

In the letter, Catlett suggested that DoubleClick: only collect information about consumers and their browsers if they have given explicit consent; show consumers that collected information and offer consumers the opportunity to delete all of the information if desired.

In its new privacy policy, DoubleClick states that if it “collects personal information from you for our own purposes (such as to process an employment application on this site), we will provide you with reasonable access to that information.” And that it treats personal information in a manner consistent with the policy under which it was collected, unless it has consent to use it differently.

The new 10-point policy was designed to be more “consumer friendly,” DoubleClick said. At its Web site, www.doubleclick.net, a click on the link to the privacy policy delivers a pop up box that reads in part “In the spirit of the interactive Web, we invite you to comment on this new privacy statement through June 30, 2001. As a company that interacts with thousands of Web sites and millions of consumers, we want to make sure that our policy provides awareness of our services and technologies in a way that is easy to understand.” An e-mail address is provided for comment.

“DoubleClick is committed to executing its business in the most open manner possible,” Polonetsky said in a statement released Friday. “This extends from opening our privacy policy up to public comment, to clearly outlining for consumers how “cookies” work and how they can opt-out of them, and to holding our adherence to our privacy policy up to regular independent review, as we have committed to do here.”

Catlett also called for DoubleClick to answer a question posed by the Wall Street Journal as to whether or not data had been stolen by hackers that broke into DoubleClick systems. He also asked for DoubleClick to make public the results of a security audit it had commissioned in March by Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC.

DoubleClick Inc., New York, has posted a new privacy policy at its Web site for public review, and is soliciting feedback from the privacy community, public policymakers and consumers for the next 30 days.

Feedback was immediate from privacy advocates.

In a letter dated June 1 and addressed to DoubleClick president Kevin Ryan, Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp., said that he had “repeatedly asked DoubleClick to show the 88 million Americans what is kept in the Internet advertising company’s Abacus Direct database about them,” and has been met with repeated refusal.

“How could keeping billions of records in secret electronic dossiers constitute executing business in “the most open manner possible?” Catlett wrote, referring to a quote issued Friday by Jules Polonetsky, DoubleClick’s chief privacy officer.

DoubleClick said that revisions to its policy would be based on feedback received.

In the letter, Catlett suggested that DoubleClick: only collect information about consumers and their browsers if they have given explicit consent; show consumers that collected information; and offer consumers the opportunity to delete all of the information if desired.

In its new privacy policy, DoubleClick states that if it “collects personal information from you for our own purposes (such as to process an employment application on this site), we will provide you with reasonable access to that information.” And the company says that that it treats personal information in a manner consistent with the policy under which it was collected, unless it has consent to use it differently.

The new 10-point policy was designed to be more “consumer friendly,” DoubleClick said. At its Web site, www.doubleclick.net, a click on the link to the privacy policy delivers a pop-up box that reads in part, “In the spirit of the interactive Web, we invite you to comment on this new privacy statement through June 30, 2001. As a company that interacts with thousands of Web sites and millions of consumers, we want to make sure that our policy provides awareness of our services and technologies in a way that is easy to understand.” An e-mail address is provided for comment.

“DoubleClick is committed to executing its business in the most open manner possible,” Polonetsky said, in a statement released Friday. “This extends from opening our privacy policy up to public comment, to clearly outlining for consumers how “cookies” work and how they can opt-out of them, and to holding our adherence to our privacy policy up to regular independent review, as we have committed to do here.”

Catlett also called for DoubleClick to answer a question posed by the Wall Street Journal as to whether or not data had been stolen by hackers who broke into DoubleClick systems. He also asked for DoubleClick to make public the results of a security audit it had commissioned in March by Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC.