Consumer Advocates Seek a "Do-Not-Track" List

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October 31, 2007

Consumer Advocates Seek a "Do-Not-Track" List

Today’s New York Times reports on a number of consumer groups who are asking for an online analog to the Do-Not-Call list.:

“While advertisers often say that consumers like receiving ads that are relevant to them rather than generic, privacy advocates say that most people do not realize the amount of personal information they are sharing with marketers.

“‘I think this is about consumer knowledge and choice,’ said Leslie Harris, president and chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in an interview.

“‘A consumer can choose to say, ‘I don’t care that they have all this information about me. These ads are valuable to me,” but a consumer should also be able to say, ”I don’t want them to have all that information,” said Ms. Harris, whose organization is among the nine groups asking for the do-not-track list.

A do-not-track list would not reduce the number of ads people see on Web sites. Instead, people who signed up for the service would simply see ads that are not specialized for them, since advertisers would not be using the consumers’ recent history on the Web to surmise their interests.

The consumer groups also want the government to redefine what information is considered to be personally identifiable to include behavior online, in instances when Web searches can be traced to an individual person.

The groups are asking for quote a bit more than that, as well, including consumer access to collated tracking information and a disclosure system for online ads that utilize behavioral tracking.

With Google moving very quickly to seal the deal on dubious privacy policy frameworks, it’s good to see the consumer and privacy groups getting in there and participating in the conversation. Better yet, even if it seems like they’re asking for the moon, they’re putting online ad outfits in the position of explaining why they would or wouldn’t want to supply the sort of disclosure these groups are asking for.

You can read the entire proposal at the World Privacy Forum’s site. Hit the link to the “consensus document,” which is a PDF.

AOL’s already trying something in this area, too.

Reuters — AOL to let users block targeted Web ads:

“AOL’s program will point consumers to the right place to block such ads. Choosing to opt out sends a cookie to a user’s computer that blocks the ads from appearing. AOL’s system prevents the deletion of the opt-out cookie.

“The program will also send ‘millions’ of public service banner ads explaining the policy across the company’s own Web sites and on those in which it sells ads.

“‘Our goal with this program is to engender greater trust for targeted advertising by communicating with consumers in a more visible way, and by providing them more information about their choices,’ AOL Executive Vice President Curt Viebranz said in a statement.”

Steve Bellovin has some interesting notes on the problems an undertaking like this faces.

Tags: privacy