The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, John Leibowitz, still thinks that the advertising industry has not done enough to inform consumers and obtain their consent for Behavioral Targeting. His most recent statements, captured by Business Week earlier this week, make it clear that he needs to see more, and if time hasn’t already run out to prevent suits and/or legislation, we’re awfully close to that point.

There are two important points in the article that are raised, but beg for clarifying details.

• Recent industry actions inadequate?

But Leibowitz hints that he’s growing impatient with marketers’ efforts. “It’s not clear that they’re moving far enough or fast enough, even though they’re making some progress,” Leibowitz says …

The IAB has recently launched an important set of self regulatory principles outlining notice and choice steps required of industry participants. Is Leibowitz stating that the principles, which include out of privacy policy notices and other steps, will not suffice? Or are the principles fine, but the state of adoption poor? Or are other steps entirely absent from the document necessary?

• Opt-in standards for some BT?

[Leibowitz] supports the controversial approach of making more of the targeted ads on the Internet “opt-in”—meaning they would require consent from Web users before collecting data—and is in talks with members of Congress intent on drafting legislation for online ads.

I understand the direction here, but we’re going to have to see specifics on which forms of BT, and which players in the ecosystem will be held accountable for the collection of that consent, before folks in the industry start to breath easy (or know that they should be worried).

Regardless, it’s clear that DC is going to get involved, formally, and that the industry will need to be responsive.

Internet industry executives viewed Leibowitz’s appointment as chairman as a signal that Washington would ratchet up its attention to the impact of technology on consumers. “The stars are aligned for significant change” in online privacy, says Jules Polonetsky, a former executive at AOL (TWX) and Internet advertising company DoubleClick, who now heads the Washington think tank The Future of Privacy Forum.