‘New guidance’ for tracking consumers online
p2pnet news view Freedom | Advertising:- U.S. tweaks Internet privacy guidelines
What, exactly, does that mean?
It’s a Reuters headline to a story, and it looks so innocuous.
But it isn’t.
The story goes on »»»
Federal regulators tweaked recommendations for how websites should collect, save and share information about users, extending them to Internet service providers and mobile users.
The Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance on Thursday for the self-regulated industry that urges websites to tell consumers that data is being collected during their searches and to allow them to opt out.
This guidance recommends that mobile companies and Internet service providers also inform customers about data collection and allow users to decline.
Yesterday, “Former spyware marketer and promoter Phorm will be online with its privacy invading advertising platform by the end of the year, say reports,” p2pnet posted, continuing:
“DPI is short for Deep Packet Inspection, an almost harmless seeming term which in Canada is being forcefully thrust into public attention by the Bell Canada throttling scandal …”
DPI (and filtering), “enables advanced security functions as well as internet data mining, eavesdropping, censorship, etc,” says the Wikipedia. “Advocates of net neutrality fear that DPI technology will be used to privatize the Internet.”
And among critics are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Web.
‘The time for baby steps to protect online privacy is long past’
In the US, the new FTC Net advertising guidelines, “don’t put enough pressure on companies to protect consumer data used in targeted marketing campaigns,” privacy advocacy groups said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“The FTC report urged advertising providers such as Google Inc. to boost online privacy by gaining consent before gathering personal data and limiting the amount of time they hold on to the information,” says the story.
But, “The time for baby steps to protect online privacy is long past,” the LA Times has Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, saying.
“The commission failed to protect consumers here.”
However, “Internet companies embraced the FTC’s light touch,” says the San Francisco Chronicle, continuing:
“Pablo Chavez, Google’s senior policy counsel, said in a blog post that the ‘principles underscore that in a fast-evolving space like the Internet, a self-regulatory approach is the best way to protect consumers and promote innovation.’ He added that the industry can and should do more to protect user privacy, and that it will lobby for federal legislation on the issue.
“Yahoo echoed Google’s sentiments about self-regulation and pointed to what is called a record of transparency and consumer choice, including the ability for its users to opt out of behavioral tracking, available at privacy.yahoo.com. Kelley Benander, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said that a small number of users have taken advantage of the option, but she didn’t have any exact numbers.”
The fact the vast majority of people with Net accounts are technically naive and have no idea their personal and private data are routinely hijacked at every opportunity; and, that they’ve never heard “behavioral tracking” and wouldn’t know how to opt out of it, even if they knew it existed, isn’t mentioned.
But insincere posturing by the likes of Google and Yahoo plays well in print, and looks convincing to lawmakers everywhere.
Meanwhile, “The new guidelines suggest that Web sites explain how they collect and use data in a ‘clear, concise, consumer friendly, and prominent’ way,” says the New York Times.
But, “few sites meet that standard right now, the commission found,” it says, quoting Eileen Harrington, acting director of the commission’s bureau of consumer protection, as saying:
“What we observe is that, with rare exception, it is not the rule for any Web sites to do those things.
“It is far more commonplace for them to put the information in the midst of lengthy and hard-to-understand privacy policies.”
Reuters – U.S. tweaks Internet privacy guidelines, February 12, 2009
p2pnet – BT, Phorm, live and online by year end, February 11, 2009
Los Angeles Times – FTC standards for Web marketers fall short, privacy advocates say, February 13, 2009
San Francisco Chronicle – New guidelines for tracking consumers online, February 13, 2009
New York Times – Agency Skeptical of Internet Privacy Policies, February 12, 2009
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February 14th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Funny… and I thought Google was always right!
It seems to me that data gathering of this sort should be opt-in, not opt-out. Why should I have to tell them I don’t want to be scrutinized routinely? They should be asking me if I want their scrutiny services!
It’s possible, IMO, for relatively anonymous “private” info, like browsing patterns, could be used on a large(ish) scale to help improve search functionality — for example, by moving the most popular sites to the top of the list, to start with. However, this comes at a cost: the potential to abuse this information. I, for one, am not willing to let my information be abused, whatever the original intentions may have been. Bottom line: storing my personal data on your server without my specific consent == bad. (Of course, posting this would have to qualify as specific consent: there is no possible reason for me to fill out this form without consenting to its being stored and published!)