In the world of the wild wild web some privacy guarantees need to exist.

The Department of Commerce has proposed the adoption of a set of principles that the agency says will be comparable to a consumer online privacy “Bill of Rights,” recognized by the United States government.

“America needs a robust privacy framework that preserves consumer trust in the evolving Internet economy while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs, and economic growth,” declared Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in announcing the initiative. “Self-regulation without stronger enforcement is not enough. Consumers must trust the Internet in order for businesses to succeed online.”

As Locke’s comment suggests, this is a major initiative towards some kind of Federal oversight of online privacy practices. But the privacy items, yet to be specifically enumerated, won’t actually be called anything as fun as the phrase used for the first ten amendments to our constitution.

Instead they’ll be dubbed “Fair Information Practice Principles” (FIPPs), intended to promote “increased transparency through simple notices, clearly articulated purposes for data collection, commitments to limit data uses to fulfill these purposes, and expanded use of robust audit systems to bolster accountability.”

Read the rest at Ars Technica.