Online 'Do-Not-Track' List Proposed

In the US, a coalition of nine privacy and consumer groups has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to implement a 'Do-Not-Track' list for Internet users who do not want their online activities tracked, stored and used by advertisers and marketers.

Such a list would be modeled on the Do-Not-Call telephone list, which consumers can join to prevent telemarketing phone calls.

The groups want to force online advertisers to be more transparent about their user profiling and ad targeting tactics. They suggest that advertising companies that set cookies should be required by law to give the FTC the addresses of their servers. Browser plug-ins would then enable blocking of ad servers on that list for registered individuals.

The groups - which include the US Public Interest Research Group, World Privacy Forum, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation of America - delivered a 74-page statement to today's FTC summit 'Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology' [yes, that's Ehavioral without the B], in support of the formal complaint they raised last year that identified new technology which 'attacks personal privacy online'.

'Online marketers are creating digital dossiers on individual consumers, so they can be tracked when surfing the web, watching a broadband video, or using their mobile phone,' explained Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the CDD. 'Today, we also ask the FTC to launch an immediate investigation into new threats to privacy from the behavioural targeting and profiling of children and youth, including on social networks.'

The proposal would also prohibit advertisers from collecting and using personally identifiable information about health and financial activities and would require independent auditing of companies using behavioural tracking to ensure they upheld privacy standards.

Separately, AOL has recently unveiled an 'educational' programme that allows users to opt out of participating in the company's behavioural targeting programme.

The CDT is online at www.cdt.org.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.