Slashdot Mirror
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."
Da-mit.
I was just thinking to myself, "So what if Microsoft or some orther megacrop knows my personal tastes and targets ads that I'd be interested in seeing?" Then you had to mention the government. It never occurred to me that the US Congress or EU Parliament might simply TAKE the information and use it for their own nefarious purposes.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Analyzing.... Done. Selected advertisement:
"Online English Course From $4.99
Try Some Free Lessons Here Now!"
Dilbert RSS feed