But officials for the Direct Marketing Association criticised the survey's methodology and pointed to an earlier poll that found privacy practices improving.

The survey, by the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), reviewed the Web sites of 40 new members of the association and found only three abiding by the group's privacy guidelines.

In October 1997, the association adopted rules requiring all its 3,600 members to provide notice to people who visited their Web sites about what personal information was collected and how the data would be used.

Companies were also supposed to allow people to choose not to have their information sold to others. The EPIC survey found all 40 of the company sites collected personal information, mostly through registration, feedback, contact or other forms.But only eight sites had any privacy policy posted at all and of those only three met the association's 1997 guidelines, EPIC said.

``Almost a year after the DMA pledged a comprehensive privacy policy, we find that new members to the association don't even bother with privacy notices,'' EPIC's executive director Marc Rotenberg said. ``It's prettypathetic.''

Senior vice- president Connie Heatley at the direct marketers group, responded that new members would be less familiar with the privacy guidelines.

Members became more educated about the issue, she added. A survey of leading business Web sites conducted for the association in May found 64 per cent of sites had privacy policies compared to 38 per cent in January.

``Education makes a difference,'' Heatley said. ``Businesses do have a concern about privacy and when this issue is brought to their attention they post a privacy policy.''

Rotenberg said the survey results dealt another blow to the Clinton administration's policy of allowing the privatesector to decide how best to protect consumers' privacy rights in cyberspace.

``Based on our survey of the DMA's new members, we have real doubts that self-regulation is the right way to go for privacy protection,'' he said.

The policy will be the focus of intense scrutiny at a commerce department conference here starting on Tuesday. Earlier on Monday, a group of almost 50 companies and groups,including the direct marketers, pledged to do better to protect the privacy of people visiting their Web sites. But the group's plan was short on specific enforcement mechanisms to ensure Web sites followed the rules.