In a broad privacy initiative published last month, Vice President Al Gore's office said, "The Administration will continue to press for self-regulation" for on-line privacy "with enforcement mechanisms."

And while Mr. Loury is concerned about the viability of antidiscrimination suits, such litigation seldom depends on state or local agencies to collect statistical data, and these are the only entities to which the racial privacy initiative applies.

The business attitudes toward online privacy are slightly more difficult to quantify, but Rob Leathern, who wrote the Jupiter report, said that most companies budgeted less than $40,000 annually for online privacy initiatives.

Over the last two years, some observers have said that these types of aggressive privacy initiatives would force competitors to follow suit.

The report concluded that, "[a]s evidenced by the Commission's survey results, and despite the Commission's three-year privacy initiative supporting a self-regulatory response to consumers' privacy concerns, the vast majority of online businesses have yet to adopt even the most fundamental fair information practice (notice/awareness)."

A10 The Clinton Administration announced a privacy initiative intended to protect children and medical patients, among others.

The interviews with voters also found that a majority had rejected Proposition 54, the so-called racial privacy initiative, which would bar state and local governments from collecting most data on race, religion and ethnicity.

"We had not seen this kind of movement before the privacy initiative."

The Obama administration supports "Do Not Track" and increased online privacy initiatives, and also endorses using legislation to make it happen.

The newest set of privacy initiatives concern spam Internet mail.