The meeting is likely to set the stage for the unveiling of the W.H.’s white paper on online privacy. | POLITICO Staff W.H. to hold online privacy meeting

Major stakeholders in the online privacy debate are being invited to the White House on Thursday for an event about the administration’s next steps to protect consumers on the Internet.

The meeting, confirmed by three invited sources, is likely to set the stage for the public unveiling of the administration’s highly anticipated white paper on online privacy, which has been more than a year in the making. The white paper is expected to call for a consumer privacy bill of rights from Congress, while charging industry to police itself under the watch of federal regulators.


“In today’s information economy, privacy has emerged as an increasingly important challenge as we work to ensure the protection of consumer information while supporting the growth of the 21st century economy,” reads the invite, obtained by POLITICO.

“We hope you can join us to discuss this important issue and steps we’ll be taking in the coming months,” it continues.

A spokeswoman at the White House did not return calls about the meeting on Tuesday. The Commerce Department, which shepherded its early green paper on privacy into the administration’s coming policy paper, also did not comment on the timing.

Online privacy has returned to the headlines this month — particularly as Google seeks to revise its privacy practices on March 1, even as it takes heat for working around the privacy settings of the Safari and Internet Explorer browsers.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:18 p.m. on February 21, 2012.

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