THE battle lines have been drawn in the brewing fight between privacy advocates and online advertisers with a proposed “Do Not Track” register likely to be a flashpoint.
A group of nine privacy and advocacy groups in the US have applied to the Federal Trade Commission for the creation of register that would let users ‘opt-out’ of the internet advertising practice of tracking, storing and using details of consumers’ online habits.
The No Not Track register would operate in the same as way as the Do Not Call register, which stops telemarketing companies from calling their home phones numbers.
It is the Federal Trade Commission that operates the Do Not Call register in the US. In Australia, a Do Not Call register was introduced earlier this year, operated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Privacy has become a frontline issue in online advertising and marketing, with billions of dollars at stake. Online search giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have all spent billions this year acquiring online advertising firms – with the aim of using demographic and preference data acquired through the search process and applying it to advertising.
The US FTC on Wednesday held a ‘Town Hall’ meeting to hear consumer concerns about online advertising and marketing. Groups engaged in lobbying for the Do Not Track register include the
Electronic Frontiers Foundation, the World Privacy Forum, the
Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Consumer Federation of America.
From the internet to mobile devices and beyond, consumers leave behind a vast amount of behavioural information that is tracked and targeted by advertisers and marketers without their knowledge. This “behavioural tracking” – the practice of collecting and compiling a record of individual consumers' activities, interests, preferences, and communications over time – places consumers' privacy at risk, and is not covered by law.
“If you look back at the Do Not Call list, it was at one time managed by industry. But it didn’t gain widespread acceptance until the FTC took it over,” said World Privacy Forum executive director Pam Dixon.
“The industry has had seven years to prove they can manage online opt-outs. It is time to move toward something structured like the Do Not Call list to address the problems we are seeing, and have now seen for seven years.”
The Do Not Track list springs from consumer protection principles on the internet already enforced by the Commission, and builds on its experience as the lead law enforcement agency in the fight against and prosecution of spyware abuse.
The Do Not Track register would require advertising entities that place persistent tracking technologies on consumers’ computers to register with the FTC all domain names of the servers involved in such activities.
Developers of browser applications would be encouraged to create plug-ins allowing users to download the Do Not Track list onto their computers. Having the list accessible via a browser application would allow users to prevent any site from tracking behavioural data.
“Online opt-outs should be as well-known and as easy as the Do Not Call list,” said Consumer Federation of America research director, Mark Cooper.
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