ONLINE PRIVACY: DO NOT TRACK ME PLEASE?

It’s not a secret for anyone that every time we make a purchase online, look for travel information or google something we are being watch. As consumers, knowing that we are being subject of some sort of “online marketing espionage” definitely make us ask questions about our individual rights. Where is the line draw when it comes to the ownership of our internet browsing history? The answer is not only unclear, but also alternative responses are currently being the center of the debate between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the many companies that use and sell users’ internet performed activities records to market their products (behavioral marketing).

On the one hand, according to an article released in the Wall Street Journal, the Internet and advertising companies are claiming that online privacy legislation threatens to constrain the $23 billion Internet-ad market. On the other side, in an attempt to establish the boundaries and protects consumers against invasion of privacy, the FTC had release some guidelines for the industry on how to proceed in this matter.

While some of the recommendations are seen to be quite ambiguous and we all know how ambiguity works in terms of law applications, the inclusion of a specific option on browsers that allows users to decide whether they want to block or allow certain websites to collect information from them seems to be a feasible approach in addressing the privacy concerns, providing some adjustments. Why? Because privacy invasion in this context refers to being observed without our consent and knowledge about what part of our behavior is being recorded, where is the captured information being store, for what specific purposes and who is performing the observation. If the FTC can enforce the provision of users’ access to choose what they want to be tracked with the transparent availability of all this information to the consumer and a non ambiguous description of the feature, It seems that a significant part of the issue could be resolved, even though other aspects such as consumer data security obviously need to also be put into effect.

Some companies are already working on this particular FTC recommendation. Recently, Microsoft announced the inclusion of a “tracking protection” feature in the IE9, the latest version of the company’s internet browser expected to be released in 2011.

It will be interesting to see what we would choose. Right now we don’t have a choice, but if anyone ask any of us if we want more privacy, my guess is that almost everyone will respond yes. The coming year will probably let us know how many of the broad mass of internet users actually care about behavioral marketing practices. Would you click the not tracking button?

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703612804575222601908300456.html#ixzz17vaZ3UFJ

http://www.itworld.com/security/130082/microsoft-promises-tools-ie-protect-privacy-squash-javascript-malware?source=itw_rss