Ad Targeter's Ten-Day Opt-Out Falls Foul of FTC

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sanctioned ad targeting company Chitika for installing cookies on users' machines just ten days after they had opted out of tracking.

The Westborough, MA-based firm gave users an opt-out but failed to make it clear that this lasted for only ten days, at which the point the firm began installing cookies on their computers again - a deceptive practice in violation of federal law, the FTC said. Chitika was not fined but has agreed it will offer users a clear opt-out which remains effective for five years, and will destroy all the information it had obtained by the deceptive practice.

Chitika creates ads for publishers including the Hearst Corporation and Salary.com and tracks users to display behaviorally targeted ads. Its revised privacy policy states that it does not collect any 'personally identifying user-level information'.

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