A study today shows a dramatic improvement since last year in the number of companies on the Internet that tell consumers how personal information collected about them on Web sites is used.
Some Web sites sell the information to third-party advertisers and others.
A similar government study last year found that only 14 percent of sites adequately warned how companies used private information they collected about customers. The report is expected to help define the role the federal government will play in regulating parts of the Internet, the worldwide computer network used by roughly 100 million Americans. The Federal Trade Commission, expected to recommend to Congress this summer whether new Internet privacy laws are needed, has said it wanted to see results from the latest study before making any decisions. Industry groups argued before they knew results of today's study that merely doubling the number of sites with privacy notices from last year's 14 percent would represent substantial progress. But there was troubling news in the survey, too.