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."

Comments

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

The government will allow the private sector to do what it is politically unable to do itself. Once enough data is collected, the state can access it under National Security Letters when it needs to. All this without the political and legal consequences of the state operating the system itself.

Re:Good luck with that

[WindowlessView]

Correct but they don't need National Security Letters for this. They already buy, access, and store a ton of private sector data. It's not a loophole, it's the St. Louis arch, and its been open for years.

It's a little naive to think that segments of the government haven't their fingers in the development of various private sector companies since the beginning. Between CIA venture money, DARPA grants, large government contract awards, carefully placed personnel, etc., this far from some fortunate development that fell from the sky for them.

Not Trolling ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... but is this part of the price we pay for free websites?

AFA harvesting data from social networking sites, well, if you're willing to post every detail of your life you can't be surprised if someone, or some company, is willing to suck up that data. It doesn't make it right, but I find it hard to feel sorry for people who want their lives to be a "web based reality show" for their friends but don't want anyone to actually use that information (either for marketing or for passing judgement on their character when it comes to employment, etc).

Re:Not Trolling ...

[kent_eh]

How about
People: We have learned never to trust advertisers to do anything that is remotely in our interests. Don't try to tell us you are trying to make your ads more relevant to us. We don't believe you.

The advertising industry has broken my trust for decades. It'll take at least that long for them to regain it.

Re:Give me the good old days...

[icebraining]

when I received totally non-nonsensical adds for feminine hygiene products (I'm a man), dating services (I'm married...in the traditional sense), and other products I don't care about! This whole only having to see adds that I could possibly be interested in is way too much!

Nobody wants to stop you from getting target ads, if you explicitly prefer them.

Yes I get that the point is about privacy, but seriously, privacy is a fairly recent invention in human history that only is a convenience for the wicked or helps validate the prejudices of the ignorant. The truth is that privacy, although attractive to our weaker side, is an illusion and not truly a fundamental right.

First, there are no "fundamental rights". Every right is as valid as any other. Unless you can tell me how are we supposed to distinguish between those rights without asking for your opinion.

Second, privacy is not a recent invention. The invasion of privacy is a recent invention, before that the lack of privacy wasn't an issue, because it didn't exist.

Third, it's funny how we as individuals don't have the right to keep our data private, yet no one claims that companies' secrets should be public domain. Only profit counts, right?

Re:What's wrong with targeted ads?

[icebraining]

I'm have zero interest in loosing weight

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