FTC To Examine Targeted Advertising

narramissic writes "Following a series of complaints by privacy groups, the FTC has announced plans to host a two-day forum on targeted advertising at the beginning of November in Washington, DC. It's the first time since 2000 that the agency has looked at industry practices in this area. They hope to learn how Web advertising firms protect the personal data they collect, how they notify consumers about that data, and whether the data is sold to or used by other firms." The FTC page for the event ia here. Sign up by September 14 if you want to be a panelist or to recommend topics for discussion.

Comments

Re:I'll make the FTC's job easy.

[Jack9]

They hope to learn how Web advertising firms protect the personal data they collect,

They protect it fiercely. Keeping the data secret keeps the valuation of the data high for resale and ensures that they retain a competitive edge in the niche markets where the competition is weakest or they are using the technology to capitalize on the data.

how they notify consumers about that data,

You are never notified about soft data collection and most multinationals notify you when collecting hard data.

and whether the data is sold to or used by other firms.

The soft data that is relatively transient (like behavior in terms of topical or contextual interests and IP address) is only kept for 2 weeks and is not resold anywhere. The data's worth the most within 48 hours of being collected and drops precipitously from there. It's basically worthless as corporate red tape, formatting issues, and technical exploitation exceeds a timetable of 2 weeks for someone else to exploit. The hard data like address, phone number, etc. is sold periodically at some point, multiple times and maintains a minimal value for up to 10 years (YMMV).

I think your study needs work.