By LOUISE STORY
A coalition of privacy groups asked the government today to set up a mandatory do-not-track list for the Internet.
The groups — which include the Consumer Federation of America, World Privacy Forum and several others — are worried that online advertising companies are collecting too much data about consumers’ Web habits.
For a few years, advertisers have been using information about what Web sites people visit to deliver ads to them later on. The practice is called behavioral targeting, and the Federal Trade Commission is hosting a forum tomorrow and Friday about the privacy issues it raises.
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.
Executives from several of the groups involved in the do-not-track initiative will speak at the F.T.C.’s forum alongside executives from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and the AOL unit of Time Warner. This morning, AOL announced a boost in its own opt-out system, and executives there said other online advertising companies should follow its lead.
AOL will be running a public education campaign in the coming months to inform Web users about the upside of behavioral targeting, which includes getting offers for products and services that could potentially be helpful or appealing.
It has been eight years since the F.T.C. drilled down into the privacy implications of online advertising. Last year, the agency held a technology forum and pinpointed behavioral targeting as a major problem area. Since then, there have been a number of high-profile acquisitions of advertising technology companies that have put more of the data into fewer hands. Among those are Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive, a company that owns the ad-delivery company Atlas, and Google’s proposed deal to purchase DoubleClick, another ad-delivery company. The F.T.C. is still evaluating the Google deal, but it is studying it for antitrust implications rather than privacy concerns.
The assumption in online advertising has been that consumers will opt-out of tracking if they do not like it, but most advertising networks’ opt-out policies are difficult to follow and find. And consumers who delete cookies — small bits of text sent from users computers to servers — after signing up for an opt-out policy sometimes delete their opt-out choice along with the cookies.
“We have really moved to a world where we say consumers need to police the market, and, increasingly, it is a harder world to police,” said Martin Abrams, executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership, a think tank within the law firm Hunton & Williams that is financed by companies like Microsoft, Best Buy and Google.
The coalition of privacy groups also called for a system of disclosure notices on Internet ads, which would be required to notify consumers if behavioral tracking was involved. The groups also want companies to show consumers the profiles they are building about them, upon request.
The do-not-track list would be a comprehensive list of the servers of advertising companies. Consumers could download the list and use it to change the settings on their Web browsers.
Ms. Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology said her group was mainly concerned with data that online advertising companies store to create user profiles. Some companies, like Google, choose what ads to show people based on the context of what they are searching for or typing about (in Gmail) at that very moment. But Google says it does not store that data.
The F.T.C. has been asked many times to create some kind of a do-not-track list, said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the agency. Ms. Harris said this was the first time that so many privacy and consumer advocacy groups had coalesced around the issue.
“The goal of providing a consumer with advertising that matches their interests is something that provides a lot of value to consumers,” Ms. Harrington said. “But there are questions about whether it may also come with costs that consumers don’t want to pay.”
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Cookies, online tracking and advertising
When you surf the Internet, advertisers and marketers are likely using Web cookies to track your online habits -- what you buy, what Web sites you visit and how often -- in order to target their ads to you. If you're searching reviews of a specific movie or car, for example, you may later see an ad for that movie or car even when you've moved on to a completely unrelated site.
It's called behavioral advertising, and consumer advocacy groups are pushing for a way to opt out of it. A coalition of nine groups today proposed a "Do Not Track" list for users who don't want to be tracked online. The coalition asked the Federal Trade Commission to require advertisers to register all domain names of the servers that set "persistent unique identifier." Consumers could then download that list and block them. For the group's full proposal, click here.
Stopbadware.org challenged folks with a $5,000 prize to come up with 2-minute videos to explain Web cookies and explore their privacy implications. Here's one that made the cut. For all five, go here.
The winner will be announced Thursday, when the FTC's workshop on Ehaviorial Advertising begins in Washington, D.C.
Web cookies are plain text files that are transferred from the server to your browser and get stored on your computer's hard drive. Aside from tracking how often you visit certain sites, cookies allow Web sites to remember your log in or items you place in a shopping cart. ZDNet's Larry Dignan says there's nothing to worry about, including that cookies are "anonymous."
One easy way to protect yourself is to delete your cookies, run an anti-spyware program that deletes tracking programs or set up your browser to not permit them in the first place. For more on how to disable cookies, click on this useful site.
It's called behavioral advertising, and consumer advocacy groups are pushing for a way to opt out of it. A coalition of nine groups today proposed a "Do Not Track" list for users who don't want to be tracked online. The coalition asked the Federal Trade Commission to require advertisers to register all domain names of the servers that set "persistent unique identifier." Consumers could then download that list and block them. For the group's full proposal, click here.
Stopbadware.org challenged folks with a $5,000 prize to come up with 2-minute videos to explain Web cookies and explore their privacy implications. Here's one that made the cut. For all five, go here.
The winner will be announced Thursday, when the FTC's workshop on Ehaviorial Advertising begins in Washington, D.C.
Web cookies are plain text files that are transferred from the server to your browser and get stored on your computer's hard drive. Aside from tracking how often you visit certain sites, cookies allow Web sites to remember your log in or items you place in a shopping cart. ZDNet's Larry Dignan says there's nothing to worry about, including that cookies are "anonymous."
One easy way to protect yourself is to delete your cookies, run an anti-spyware program that deletes tracking programs or set up your browser to not permit them in the first place. For more on how to disable cookies, click on this useful site.
Darn Cookies (...Computer Cookies, That Is)
We're talking about computers, here, not about recipes. If you have ever used the Internet, there is every chance that 'cookies' reside on the hard drive in your machine.
"Cookies" seem to come in two varieties. We'll call one "Cookies-In" and the other "Cookies-Out." What's the difference and why should you care? Bear with me, and I'll try to keep the explanation simple.
A computer "cookie" is essentially a bit of software coding put onto your device that reports information about your computer to someone else. Most often, you are probably unaware that this coding has been installed or that it is operating. "Cookies" can slow your machine if there are enough of them, but they are usually not particularly noticeable.
Okay, so "cookies" report information about your computer to someone else. In some cases, the reporting is useful to you. When, for example, I do my banking on the Internet, the website of the institution I use wants to know, first, the number of my account and, second, my password. Trying to keep track of passwords is a subject all by itself, but I surely don't want to have to remember and enter the 16-digit account number every time I check my account or perform a transaction.
Major web sites nowadays will let you save your account number and your password on your computer so that you do not need to enter the information every time you try to access the web site. In my case, I save the account number only - not my password. If someone else uses my computer, they can get to the homepage of my bank and they will have my account number, but without my password, that's as far as they will get. And, for me, I don't have to remember that 16-digit account number when I do my online banking.
This is a case of what I want to call a "Cookie-In." The "cookie" is helpful to me. I want the convenience it provides, and I do not mind that when I use the web site, my computer is automatically reporting my account number to the bank. Unfortunately, not all "cookies," are so benign.
Many web sites employ "cookies" to report to someone else your use of the Internet. The specific information that is gathered on your usage can vary from one "cookie" service to another. For me, however, it is enough that a "cookie" has been installed on my machine without my permission and any information is being reported to someone else about how I use it. These types of "cookies," ones that do not particularly benefit me and are of greater benefit to someone else, bother me greatly. They are the types of "cookies" that I want to call "Cookie-Outs."
Web site providers that use "Cookie-out" services seem to argue that we can all benefit from the information that they collect. They can target ads that will appeal to particular populations. They can design ads to be more appealing. They can decide what products to promote and which to drop, and so forth. These arguments all support the concept of commerce. Where you might stand on the issues of commerce is unknown to me. Where I stand, however, is that the Internet ought not to be simply another vehicle for commercial enterprises to find better ways to entice me to part with the 'almighty buck.'
I have the expectation that I am not alone. I am reconciled to the idea that the Internet will have advertisements. I even believe that some level of commercialism is beneficial, supporting efforts to bring more and more information to the Internet. I do not, though, want my computer usage monitored and I especially do not want it monitored without my permission. There is, of course, no reason why a "Cookie-Out" could not announce that it will be loaded, that it will gather X, Y, and Z information, and do you grant your permission, yes or no, to it continuing. It's not done, most likely because a lot of folks like you and me would answer no, skewing the statistical results of the information that they try to gather.
So, what can you do about "Cookies-Out?" The answer is that you can, in fact, get rid of a lot of "Cookies-Out," even if it looks as though it will be an ongoing battle until something more global is done about the problem.
"Cookies" seem to come in two varieties. We'll call one "Cookies-In" and the other "Cookies-Out." What's the difference and why should you care? Bear with me, and I'll try to keep the explanation simple.
A computer "cookie" is essentially a bit of software coding put onto your device that reports information about your computer to someone else. Most often, you are probably unaware that this coding has been installed or that it is operating. "Cookies" can slow your machine if there are enough of them, but they are usually not particularly noticeable.
Okay, so "cookies" report information about your computer to someone else. In some cases, the reporting is useful to you. When, for example, I do my banking on the Internet, the website of the institution I use wants to know, first, the number of my account and, second, my password. Trying to keep track of passwords is a subject all by itself, but I surely don't want to have to remember and enter the 16-digit account number every time I check my account or perform a transaction.
Major web sites nowadays will let you save your account number and your password on your computer so that you do not need to enter the information every time you try to access the web site. In my case, I save the account number only - not my password. If someone else uses my computer, they can get to the homepage of my bank and they will have my account number, but without my password, that's as far as they will get. And, for me, I don't have to remember that 16-digit account number when I do my online banking.
This is a case of what I want to call a "Cookie-In." The "cookie" is helpful to me. I want the convenience it provides, and I do not mind that when I use the web site, my computer is automatically reporting my account number to the bank. Unfortunately, not all "cookies," are so benign.
Many web sites employ "cookies" to report to someone else your use of the Internet. The specific information that is gathered on your usage can vary from one "cookie" service to another. For me, however, it is enough that a "cookie" has been installed on my machine without my permission and any information is being reported to someone else about how I use it. These types of "cookies," ones that do not particularly benefit me and are of greater benefit to someone else, bother me greatly. They are the types of "cookies" that I want to call "Cookie-Outs."
Web site providers that use "Cookie-out" services seem to argue that we can all benefit from the information that they collect. They can target ads that will appeal to particular populations. They can design ads to be more appealing. They can decide what products to promote and which to drop, and so forth. These arguments all support the concept of commerce. Where you might stand on the issues of commerce is unknown to me. Where I stand, however, is that the Internet ought not to be simply another vehicle for commercial enterprises to find better ways to entice me to part with the 'almighty buck.'
I have the expectation that I am not alone. I am reconciled to the idea that the Internet will have advertisements. I even believe that some level of commercialism is beneficial, supporting efforts to bring more and more information to the Internet. I do not, though, want my computer usage monitored and I especially do not want it monitored without my permission. There is, of course, no reason why a "Cookie-Out" could not announce that it will be loaded, that it will gather X, Y, and Z information, and do you grant your permission, yes or no, to it continuing. It's not done, most likely because a lot of folks like you and me would answer no, skewing the statistical results of the information that they try to gather.
So, what can you do about "Cookies-Out?" The answer is that you can, in fact, get rid of a lot of "Cookies-Out," even if it looks as though it will be an ongoing battle until something more global is done about the problem.
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