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Online Ads, Privacy Remain In FTC Crosshairs

Posted by samzenpus on from the tracking-is-the-governments-job dept.

AC95 writes "The FTC wants to give users a browser-based tool for opting out of online behavioral tracking, a proposal that has privacy advocates cheering and online advertisers up in arms. A key issue, says FTC attorney Loretta Garrison, is that while most consumers know they're tracked online, they don't fully appreciate how much information is collected. Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, worries about knee-jerk legislation criminalizing mistakes that are an inherent part of applying any new technology."

2 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mistakes? by Andorin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Troll mod? Really? The parent is 100% correct. I certainly wouldn't sleep as well at night if I knew that a business that fucked up with any personal data they had on me could get away with it by calling it a "mistake."

    --
    That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
  2. Firefox Addons Already Provide Customized Blocking by CodeBuster · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use and recommend Adblock Plus, Better Privacy, CustomizeGoogle, Flashblock, NoScript and RequestPolicy. This combination allows for extraordinarily fine grained control over what sort of information is tracked from session to session. Now, if you log into a site using an account controlled by that site then they are going to track some clicks regardless of what addons are used, but if you are logging in with a named account then you probably already knew that.