Christine A. Varney
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Christine A. Varney is an American lawyer and internet policy expert. She served in the Clinton Administration as a Federal Trade Commissioner and previously as Secretary to the Cabinet. She is currently a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm Hogan and Hartson, where she leads the internet practice group.
Varney joined the Clinton Administration at its inception, after serving as general counsel to the Democratic National Committee (1989 to 1992), chief counsel to the Clinton/Gore Campaign, and general counsel to the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Committee. As Assistant to the President and Secretary to the Cabinet, she acted as a liasion between the White House and cabinet departments. She stated the Clinton Administration's philosophy of cabinet management this way: "if you don’t surprise us, we won't micromanage you!" [[1]] Her specific duties included organizing cabinet meetings and briefings, circulating talking points among cabinet members, compiling cabient reports with updates on each department's acitivites, and coordinating responses to natural disasters. She played a leading role in the Clinton Administration's response to revelations about Cold War experments involving the exposure of uniformed human subjects to radiation. She also had a major voice on policy regarding information technology and privacy.
These policy areas remained among her priorities while she served on the Federal Trade Commission. proposed industry standards, and increased government enforcement of laws protecting privacy. In that role, she suggested industry standards for the internet and stepped up enforcement of laws related to privacy. She promoted market theory analysis to information technology and biotechnology.
In the private sector, Varney has remianined active in protong industry self-regulation. She was involved in esablishing industry self-regulation associations, such as the Network Advertising Initiative and Online Privacy Alliance, designed to create Internet best practices policies. She is chair of the board of directors of TRUSTe, the leading privacy certification and seal program. She also lectures on american law and politics; write for mainstream, hi-tech and legal publications; and participatates in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) dialogues on international competition and political processes.
As head of Hogan and Hartson's Internet practice group, Varney represents and advises companies on matters such as antitrust, privacy, business planning and corporate governance, intellectual property, and general liability issues. Her clients have included eBay, DoubleClick, Washingtonpost, Newsweek Interactive, Dow Jones & Company, AOL, Synopsys, Compaq Computer, Gateway, Netscape, The Liberty Alliance, and Real Networks.
