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The commission had brought in academics, consumer advocates and executives from Google, Microsoft and Wal-Mart to debate what needs to change to address privacy issues online.

It was not just a theoretical question. The commission has been examining whether online privacy should be regulated. The debate has grown louder as technology companies are tracking and profiling people in new ways, Congress is showing an interest in the subject, and companies are trying to avoid government intervention.

In recent years, marketers have grown more adept at culling consumer data from an array of online and offline sources—including real-estate and motor-vehicle records, consumer surveys, credit-card data and logs of Web visitors' online behavior—to identify the most receptive audiences for their ads.

At a hearing Thursday, a House subcommittee plans to explore the impact of these practices on consumer privacy, and will hear from witnesses including advertising giant WPP, database-marketing company Acxiom, privacy advocates and others. Separately, the Federal Trade Commission, which has taken a more active role in policing online privacy this year, is preparing to take a wider look at data-collection practices at a roundtable meeting in December with representatives of the ad, media and technology industries and consumer groups.