Consumer Groups Advocate for 'Do Not Track' Registry

eldavojohn writes "Consumer groups are asking for a 'do not track' registry to be implemented, similar to the successful and popular 'do not call' registry. Tracking companies are asking for examples where tracking has caused harm, and would rather the industry stay self-regulated. 'In December, the FTC approved Google's purchase of advertising rival DoubleClick over the objections of some privacy groups. At the same time, the agency urged advertisers to let computer users bar advertisers from collecting information on them, to provide "reasonable security" for any data and to collect data on health conditions or other sensitive issues only with the consumer's express consent.'"

Comments

Easiest way to opt out

[kickmyassman]

Get firefox, Noscript, and adblock plus. Block all the tracking websites! I have "google-analitics.com" (it's frightening how many websites have this embedded, even those without ads) "googlesyndication" "doubleclick" and lots of other on my "untrusted" list. Makes me 20% less paranoid.

Re:How do you "not track"

[Blakey Rat]

They have a "opt-out" cookie value.

http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

The catch being that if you do clear your cookies, you'll have to re-set the opt out cookie as well.

If you care, here's the URL to opt-out of the other big ad network:

http://www.atlassolutions.com/optout.aspx

I don't have all of them, but Doubleclick and Atlas cover something like 75-80% of the market.

Re:No, I'm not going to see the ads.

[Original Replica]

Advertising and marketing are a complete waste of human energy at best, evil mind control black magic at worst.

Advertising in Most first world countries is anti-happiness. As explained by Professor Richard Layard:

"once people's basic economic needs are met additional income and wealth contributes little to an individual's happiness. What's more a society which encourages a focus on the self and its wants, and heightened individualism, tends to undermine the very things which psychological research now shows are crucial to feelings of happiness: close personal relationships, trust, and security. On top of this consumerism, advertising and the effects of the mass media heightens human beings' natural interest in 'status' and social comparisions. This means that in contemporary society people's lives are overly concerned with work, money, and how they are doing in 'the rat race'. Such a life focus is not intrinsically satisfying and so we have the prosperity paradox that for all the increased wealth in modern society people do not feel happier.

Re:First things first

[Shadow-isoHunt]

An exit node can MITM your cookies, posts, and other shit. Tor is not meant to be used 24/7 and it's not meant to be used to submit data(like form information) without encryption(HTTPS in this case) end to end. Exit nodes can see every packet going over the wire, even changing packets to include malware(to own you IE users), replace google ads, or just build a profile on you via the passive monitoring of the communications. If tor comes into widespread use, it's going to come into widespread abuse, and you're going to look like an asshat when grandma uses an exit node with dsniff running.

Re:Individually register to stay anonymous...

[groschke]

Its poorly named. At least as proposed las year, it actually required the TRACKERS to register. So that you can easily opt out by downloading the list of trackers. See: http://infoadvocate.org/blog/2007/11/04/do-not-track-lists-and-registries/

Re:No, I'm not going to see the ads.

[schnikies79]

The research wouldn't be there in the first place if it wasn't for some type of marketing. Your friends will never have heard of it and no one will know it exist. I could make the greatest widget in the world and never sell a single one if I didn't let it be known that I am producing it. Marketing =/= ads, it includes ads.

If a company doesn't tell what they produce, the public doesn't know it's there.