Privacy Option Proposed To Control Behavioral Ads

techinsider sends this quote from Security Week: "A group of media and marketing trade associations, with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus, today announced the details of a self-regulatory program designed to give consumers enhanced control over the collection and use of data regarding their Web viewing for online behavioral advertising purposes. The program promotes the use of the 'Advertising Option Icon' and accompanying language, to be displayed within or near online advertisements or on Web pages where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company's use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Principles guiding the program. Similar to a Web site’s privacy policy, consumers will be able to link to a clear disclosure statement regarding the company's online behavioral advertising data collection and use practices as well as an easy-to-use opt-out option."

Comments

I would take a wild guess that

[hsmith]

The ones that let you opt our aren't the ones you need to worry most about...

Re:I would take a wild guess that

[prograde]

I'm reminded of the 'evil' bit.

Re:I would take a wild guess that

[KiloByte]

We learned it damn well that opting out means just "hey, there's someone who not only doesn't have ads blocked but also doesn't ignore them!". In other words, you can be damn sure other sites in that advertising network will try to advertise to you more aggressively.

Re:I would take a wild guess that

[Mathinker]

Funny, I have them opted out and blocked (more or less --- I never enable third-party advertising domains in NoScript). Does that mean I'm managing to waste even more of their resources than ordinary blockers?

Re:I would take a wild guess that

[spazdor]

I think it's almost time that we start looking at and designing GUIs the way we look at firewalls. Which apps have a legitimate need to receive which UI events? Does an app really have a right to know where the mouse is, or even whether its window happens to be minimized at the moment?

There are definitely some apps which would behave much better on my desktop if I could put a 'default drop all inbound' policy on them and just enable specific input events.

Re:I would take a wild guess that

[Runaway1956]

The battle is lost. Lost long ago. In this article, they are discussing targeted behavioural advertising like it's "normal" and "acceptable". I guess there are only a few of us freaks left who object to being tracked all over the internet. Sorry - but it's NO ONE's business where I go, or what I look at, or what I click on. Thank all the nerds and the gods of anonymity for the blocking tools available on Firefox. I can browse the web, knowing that only the MOST determined, and somewhat sophisticated people can track my habits.

I would imagine

[symes]

that the sort of person who would be interested in schooling themselves in companies policies would also be the sort of person who is well aware of how best to block most of these behavioural ads. That said, anything, no matter how small, that reigns bad ads is to be welcomed.

Re:I would imagine

[catbutt]

I don't agree. They may be aware of how to block them, but maybe that isn't their choice -- if the site takes their wishes into consideration. Maybe they actually want to support the sites they view, in hopes that they sites will continue to care about having them as a visitor.

I see, on this page, a notice that says "As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising." You know what I do in response? I let them show me ads. Because I like slashdot. I don't want it to start to become targeted at the audience that is not tech-savvy enough to know how to install an ad blocker -- I want it to be targeted at people like me.

I really don't care.

[chemicaldave]

If companies want to market ads to me based on my behavior then go for it. I wont click them anyway. Give me something that bans obnoxious (I don't need to explain what these are) ads.

Re:"Opt-out" indeed

[wealthychef]

Yes, I can always rely on marketers to honor the "opt-out" feature. And it's always so easy to find and use! This is an obvious fraud designed to avoid pending legislation of some sort. It's a dishonest attempt to appear to honor people's privacy. Only Opt-In truly honors my privacy. My data is MINE.

So... what?

[rakuen]

So people like us /.'ers who know ways to block advertisements have little use for this. The rest of the people probably won't know or care enough to utilize it. I suppose there's a middle ground in there something, but I think the bottom line is I'm impressed by how much nothing this accomplishes for the end user.

I suppose it does help cover a business' rear a bit in the legal department.

Re:So... what?

[mlts]

It is just advertising PR. It also is a wakeup call to the more technologically adept people that they are far better served by using products like AdBlock, NoScript, Sandboxie, BetterPrivacy, and other items as opposed to thinking that the website or its advertisers will do anything else but sell any and every bit of info they get to the highest bidder.

Of course, the opt out button is there, but is the private info still present on their servers? Even in saved database snapshots? All this information can be easily mined and used for profit the second that advertising company gets bought out, or declares bankruptcy, and there is nothing a person can do about it.

Re:So... what?

[AuMatar]

No, it's an attempt to head off legislation. By making a voluntary "self-policing" system, they get to point at it and say "See, we're doing something" in an attempt to block legislative efforts that would likely be more strict.

"easy-to-use opt-out option"

[John Hasler]

I've already got one of those. It's called Privoxy.

Re:Abuse

[dkleinsc]

Sure, this will be abused by the most unscrupulous types of advertisers. They're unscrupulous for a reason.

However, like the wildly popular Do Not Call registry and a voluntary program for direct mail, these do reduce the annoyance level a bit, because there are advertisers with scruples. The equivalent in the world of phone marketing is that the almost nightly "Do you want to change your long distance carrier?" calls have been replaced by maybe monthly calls from "Cardholder Services" and other obvious scam artists. While not perfect, it's definitely an improvement.

Re:"Opt-out" indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

The opt-out option is very easy to find. In your e-mail client it says something along the lines of "filter messages like these", and for your web browser it's called Adblock Plus.

Opt Out? Shouldn't that be Opt IN?

[krelvin]

I would much rather opt in for stuff I am interested in with Opt Out being the default.

Why should a consumer need to opt out of something they didn't ask for.

The right of self-determination over personal data

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Screw this voluntary self-regulation slap-on-the-wrist-at-worst bullshit.

What we really need is legal backing for the right of self-determination over personal data.

A simple technical solution to a social problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Just filter out the ads.

AdBlock Plus is a good Firefox plugin.

You can set it to filter anything you don't like. Such as Facebook: htp://api.ak.facebook.com/*, http://www.facebook.com/plugins/*, http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/*, etc.

That's it, no problems. No more crap!

Re:My way of fighting against advertisement:

[catbutt]

Everyone should boycott any product that's advertised in annoying ways.

Boycotts don't work. "Everyone" is not a single individual with a single shared interest. It is a lot of separate people, each with their own interests, acting independently. Expecting anything different is doomed to failure.

Unless you can convince people that their individual interest will be served by participating in your boycott (regardless of whether or not other's participate), you can expect the boycot to fail.

Re:TRUSTe all over again?

[zeropointburn]

While I do agree with you in spirit, there is a problem. You put your pants on in your own private property. You search Google by using a semi-public service. Instead of comparing it to how you put your pants on, compare it to someone watching and noting which parking spots you prefer at the supermarket or at work. Creepy but not illegal.
  Sometimes the information is used for statistical purposes (people from 9 county prefer the east side of the lot, 22 county prefers the west side). For targeted ads, it's more like having a free parking space downtown, provided you give your name, address, and license plate number. Then they take that and say 'hey, Bob likes to park downtown on Wednesdays, so I'll print up a few flyers with his name and leave them with the attendant to deliver when he gets there.' Then they take the next step and start charging the local shops, as well as exchanging info. Now they can say 'hey, Bob's probably coming back this Wednesday to stop in at the hardware store and the theatre, so I'll print up ads with his name on it for those stores.'
  As with many great ideas, this is very easy to misuse. If I work for the parking lot, I know Bob will be at the theatre for two hours once a week, so I know exactly when to ransack his car. If I've bought this behavioral information, now I know when Bob is away from home and where he is at certain times. Now it's getting pretty creepy. From an advertiser's perspective, I can harm them by buying the info and placing my own flyers under his window with better offers. If I'm an unscrupulous advertiser, now I know where bob lives and I can junk-mail and flyer him unto a psychotic break.

  To get away from that rampantly over-developed example, let's consider what could be done. If the major players were to offer a search engine that specifically advertised privacy, would you or I bother to use it? It would be a nice step but probably an empty gesture if it came to a court case. Some government org could try to regulate or legislate, make a mess of it, and make it both easier for scams and harder for legitimate advertisers. An industry group could form and try to self-regulate, which is what we see here. Individual users could use the tools available (like firefox and noscript), while the less tech-savvy get bombarded to make up the lost clicks. This already happens. What could possibly be done to stop the avalanche while still making it possible to run an ad-supported site? It is similar to the email spam problem in many ways, and while progress is made against both crapfests, it will never really go away.

Easy to find opt out...

[spinkham]

A:I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
P: That's the display department.
A: I had to take a torch.
P: The lights must have been out.
A: So were the stairs.
P: But you did find the plans^H^H^H^H^H opt out button?
A: Yes, I found them. In a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a door that said "Beware of the tiger".
P: That's our display department.

--The HitchhIker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re:No thanks.

[hedwards]

If they defaulted to opt-in tracking and refrained from those obnoxious flash ads, I'm sure there'd be quite a few more people that would be willing to watch the ads. But when ads purposely cover content randomly, crash the browser or track you without permission, that's pretty deserving of being blocked.

Re:TRUSTe all over again?

[Nethead]

I think if anyone wants information from me they should have to ask me for it.

But the protocol does ask you for it, and your computer answers. The solution is to train your computer to not give out the answers. There is no expectation of privacy when you freely answer nosy questions.