The Senate Commerce Committee postponed a hearing on privacy and online advertising. The hearing, which was only called five days ago, was scheduled for Wednesday (June 18), but Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who called for the hearing, asked that it be postponed. According to a spokesman for the senator, the issue appeared to be accommodating the potential witnesses.

Those witnesses were expected to talk about the state of online advertising and marketing, including behavioral marketing, the impact on users' privacy and what protections should be afforded by the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission.

The online-advertising issue has been heating up in Washington, D.C., driven by concerns about Internet-service providers’ access to data and the merging of search and advertising functions. Just last week, the chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee said the ad partnership of Google and Yahoo [1] would get a thorough going-over by his committee.

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