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Privacy Groups Want Feds To Investigate Targeted Ads
ciscoguy01 tips news that three privacy groups are asking the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether ad networks are "unfairly tracking Americans and profiting from their data." According to Wired,
"Companies named in the complaint (PDF) include Google, Yahoo, PubMatic, TARGUSinfo, MediaMath, eXelate, Rubicon Project, AppNexus, and Rocket Fuel. At issue is a growing market of targeted, real-time ads, where advertisers can choose to show ads to people based on their age, gender, income and location — as well as their recent online behavior — often on unrelated sites that let third parties track users.... Third-party cookie tracking isn't new, but as the complaint points out, marketers are increasingly trying to augment that data with other data sets, such as the social network data that Rapleaf harvests and resells.... Tying ad cookies to personally identifiable data would let marketers successfully combine online and offline data on website visitors to build a complete digital dossier on a user."
Somebody's tracking me on the Intertubes! Oh-noes.
Privoxy FTW. I wish the marketdroids the best of luck in trying to cherry-pick whatever obnoxious ad they wish to throw in front of my eyes. I find blatant advertising as obnoxious as the next person, but I find it somewhat difficult to get excited over something that I'll never see.
So what if some database somewhere says that I enjoy midget w... uh, whatever. If someone's bothered by the existence of some database entry which besides its actual existence carries no other impact, then here's what they should do: now that summer is here and the weather is nicer (in my hemisphere, at least), is to go outside, fire up the grill, and enjoy a good barbecue. Life's too short.
With a Tivo for the boob tube, and privoxy for the Intertubes, I enjoy a generally ad-free existence. I've come to the conclusion that the best way to fight obnoxious and invasive advertising is via technical means. You can't legislate it away, any more than you can legislate away rudeness. These privacy groups may have good intentions, but I think it's a waste of time. I am skeptical that the legal route will accomplish anything. What they should be doing, instead, is educating people and promoting ways for them to filter out obnoxious advertising and solicitations out of their daily lives.