Loading ...Representative Jackie Speier (D-Ca.) introduced a bill this month called the “Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011.” In the title alone, the bill sounds very appealing for consumers, but the context of it raises some potentially harmful concerns for both consumers and advertisers.
The bill hopes to protect consumer privacy by providing an option that is said to be equivalent to be the National Do Not Call Registry offline. Although several privacy groups have already spoken out in support of the policy, if passed, it would directly impact behavioral targeting that advertisers use.
According to Marc Oestreich, a Legislative Specialist for Technology Policy at The Heartland Institute, companies spent more than $22 billion on online advertising in 2009. He pointed out that a large portion of this amount was attributed to behavioral advertising and contextual advertising, both of which allow advertisers to reach a targeted, niche audience.
“I think that Jackie Speier and a lot of these privacy groups fail to understand the huge benefit that that has for the Internet marketplace and for people with the ability to receive these free services online and, just in general, to get advertising that fits your personality,” he said.
In response to complaints, the FTC asked Web browser developers, in December, to give consumers the option to opt out of online tracking for advertising. Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Apple have all complied with the request in the latest versions of their browsers.
Oestreich also mentioned that the bill could impact many of the free Internet services that consumers depend on everyday. Behavioral advertising provides the revenue to back many of these programs, and without it, companies would likely be forced to charge for Web-based email, social networks, and other similar services.
In addition, if this legislation were passed, it would presumably lead to more regulation and government intervention. Anna Maria Virzi brought up an intriguing point on ClickZ when she wrote that critics of data-driven online advertising “overestimate the ability of business and government to protect all people all the time.”
“It is more problematic than ever because it gives them [the government] too much free reign to continue to annex more and more control over this Internet marketplace, and… I would argue that the reason the Internet marketplace has been so robust is because it’s one of the only paces that’s truly free from regulation,” Oestreich added.
Ironically, Web browser Opera conducted a survey and found that the biggest privacy concern for consumers is the government.
Many groups including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Direct Marketing Association, Google, and Facebook, have filed comments with the FTC that oppose the policy and argue that a self-regulatory approach is better for both advertisers and consumers.
As we wait to see what the government decides, do you think that this bill is a solution to privacy concerns? Or, do you agree with Oestreich and believe that the private market should adapt and respond to consumers’ concern on its own?
The “Do-not-call” list was suppose to ruin the marketing world, too. It didn’t. This won’t either. Most people probably won’t even bother to opt-out.
As to whether the Gov’t should be involved or not, they are getting involved because that is the only way to make these companies listen. The FTC didn’t get involved until they received thousands of complaints.
If the companies had on their own come up with the opt-out and given people the option, it would never have been an issue would it?
Sadly, companies basically invite Gov’t regulation by not responding to the users requests. Ads worked fine and the ad model worked fine before they instituted behavioral targeting. Mass behavioral targeting freaked people out.
I have an extremely fast download speed but your video is always stopping every few seconds.
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I think that this is a good thing. I don’t need to track how people use the web to promote my business. Lots of businesses were successful long before we had internet algorithms or targeted tracking to sell products. What I hate is that my information is in the database of too many marketing companies and I don’t even know 99% of those companies. They send out junk through email and direct mail marketing which is annoying since I have to spend more time filtering through on a regular basis or shredding junk mail at home with an expensive paper shredder which I had to invest in to destroy any reference to my identity or my home address.
I’m all for this bill. http://www.marlonphoto.com
Marlon
I don’t want advertising that fits what you think is my personality, thanks anyway.
Like many of us on here, I am in the industry and run several websites with ad modules. Despite this, this bill looks very, very favorable to me. Someone has to press the brakes a little before we totally wreck our livelihoods and consumers start to shy away from the aggressiveness of overzealous advertisers. From what I know about this bill, I support it.
…and a couple more comments..directly in response to the statements made by Mr. Marc Oestreich in the video; In the “real world”, how would you like for group of people to follow you around your city all day with pens and notepads, taking notes on who you talked to, the stores you stopped at, the amount of money you spent for transaction, and ultimately, your home address so they can mail you coupons and offers? Would you not feel that it is your right to turn around and look these people in the eyes and say “Get lost you creeps. Can I please have some privacy here!!”. Companies earning money is no justification for watching peoples’ every moves when it is clearly against their wishes. This bill only intends to give people a choice on whether or not they want to be “helped” or not. Opt-in, opt-out DOES work and helps prevent headaches!!
I guess as long as the viewers can make their own mind if they want to be followed or not, it is alright.
I guess, technically if I use someone’s computer, by looking at the ads, I can get an idea of what website’s he’s been visiting.
A comparison to the offline advertising world is irrelevant, because the direct mail industry has been buying and selling users past purchase behavior for many years. If they pass that bill it will ruin alot more than anyone expects. Without tracking data, advertisers would be forced to do “blanket advertising” and thus the consumer gets more ads that fall outside their interests, while the advertisers would lose so much money that they would likely turn to more offline methods, leaving many types of free sites having to start charging fees. If you like all the free stuff that’s on the net, you might want to leave the advertising world alone.
If you are irritating your potential customers to the point that they feel the need to call on their congresspersons to get you off their back, then you have gone too far. Just because I do a search on bunions for my mother-in-law does not mean that I want to spend the next three weeks being besieged by bunion ads. And displaying contextual ads in someone’s browser is as bad as publishing their browsing history. Gimme a break. Stop whining and start learning how to make sales without harassing people. As someone said above, advertising has been around for a very long time (there are ads on the walls at Pompeii!) and businesses managed to attract customers.
I think were better off without paid targeted advertising. The quality of sponsored links isn’t usually that great.
How many of you run a commerce site that sells products online? This bill is crushing. It’s going to increase advertising cost, screw with tried and tested methods … and basically kill a slew of online merchants in the US. Last thing we need is a brilliant pro-business Democrat screwing with business.
I’m happy the house is Republican. This resume padding bill … It’s not going anywhere.
I’m looking at these so-called “sites” of people who gladly support this monstrosity – I don’t see anyone who sells any real products online. Services, and some advertising revenue that’s most likely piddly ( If it’s not 6 digits & up, yes, it’s INSIGNIFICANT. You have no idea what money is, my friend. )
But more importantly – HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAINTAIN THIS DATABASE AND A HUNDRED CONNECTIONS TO IT?
Where’s the infinite well of money to support a brain-dead Democrat project like this?
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I think youve got something great here. But what if you give a couple links to a site that backs up what youre saying? Or maybe you could give us something to look at, I could revisit & read more sometime soon?3
This really answered my problem, thanks!
Yo, I am havin a tough time attempting to rank up for the term “kokomo dentist”… Pls approve my comment!!
There is already a pretty easy solution to this problem. If you don’t want to be tracked, then don’t be logged into your Google account when you make a Google search. Or, don’t use Google/gmail/facebook at all. Other than someone’s desire to use these online services, there’s no reason why they ever have to use any of them.
If there are people that still want to use these services but not be tracked, then google could offer an option where you pay for a “do not track me” license. Every month, you pay $1 (or whatever the service provider sets as their price) and then you don’t get any ads at all. There would be two ways to pay for the service: either get advertising, or pay directly. This would be good for the service providers because now they have a reliable income stream (advertising revenue may fluctuate, but paying subscribers pay the same amount every billing period).
There’s no need to pass a law to tell Facebook how to make money. The people who make accounts on Facebook do so by their own choice, and if you don’t want to be tracked, I suggest “opt-out” and delete your account.
You don’t understand the issue at all. Nobody is trying to tell companies how to make money but to quit tracking some users that opt-out. If the companies don’t make money, so be it. You obviously don’t know the consequences of these privacy violations on users. If you’d only do a search what can be done with the data they grab about you and the devastation that can bring into your life, you will be the first on Capitol Hill backing all privacy laws. Of course, you people’s come back is always the typical “If you do nothing illegal on the web, you have nothing to worry about”. All you have to do is visit a genuine website with a pop up to a sex site or worse, a dating site and all that goes into your profile. Along with all different data they get about you, divorce attorneys then create a negative profile about you in divorce court sort of like “look, he was cheating on her, he liked to visit dating sites” and then you end up paying even for the beer of your ex’s new boyfriend for life. That’s just one example. There are millions of examples out there. These are things you people will never understand. Like Cardinal once said, and I am paraphrasing here, “Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men and I’ll find an excuse or evidence to hang them”.
Anyway, these are things and topic you will never understand judging by your post. Even if you don’t use any of those services you talk about, Google Analytics will track you on the millions of websites that use it. Inform yourself before posting on this subject ever again, please.
hey this is really great
i like this one im gonna save it thanksss 
“The BIGGEST privacy concern for consumers is the government”
… No surprise, sounds very likely…
… BUT WAIT !!!
HOW “WELL” did GOOGLE and other leading search engines “RANK” in this “PRIVACY CONCERN” research?!
If I have to deal with ads on pages, I’d rather they be about stuff I’m interested in – not Avon makeup or Viagra or AARP ads!
However, this tracking and targeting ads does bother me. There’s enough “data-mining” of my information going on and if there were laws giving us (the consumers) the opportunity to get some of these trackers off our butts, I’m all for it. If anyone has watched the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report”, you can see how the tracking and targeting of you, personally, can be a massive invasion of privacy – especially as technology evolves.
It would be nice if our “online profile” was a single database somewhere that we can access so that we can add, delete or modify the information in it, then this “Do not track” bill would be made obsolete because WE would have control of the information about us instead of it being in the hands of others.
There should be a system like that. Hey, they have a system for you to monitor and edit your credit, why not for online activity as well?
great site u have ghere by the way
“I think that Jackie Speier and a lot of these privacy groups fail to understand the huge benefit that that has for the Internet marketplace and for people with the ability to receive these free services online and, just in general, to get advertising that fits your personality,” he said.
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I really find this a interesting subject. Never looked at it in this way. If you are going to write some more articles about this subject, I definitely will be back soon! Btw your layout is truly briliant. I will be using something similar for my own website if it’s ok with you.
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can i have your myspace?