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

[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.

TRUSTe all over again?

[mlts]

Didn't we go through this before with the TRUSTe logo of showing if the site only used the information in-house versus sharing with others?

This just seems like more feel good PR fluff, like the P3P stuff about a decade ago. We don't need more "assurances" about privacy. We need the data not to be collected in the first place. No Flash shared objects. No shared objects in Quicktime or other add-ons. No using tricks in a browser to "personalize/individualize" content.

Re:TRUSTe all over again?

[Monkeedude1212]

I agree. I think if anyone wants information from me they should have to ask me for it. They should not be able to collect any more information on me anymore than I should be able to collect information on whoever is interested and using the data. And if that's an advertising firm with 200+ employees than I want the browsing habits of all 200+ employees. I'd probably settle for just the CEO. Just a simple exchange of information, right? No different than sharing our names. But like I said earlier, they should have to ask, and I should have the right to refuse. Simple as that. Why should browsing habits be considered any less private than how I put on my pants in the morning, yet if someone wanted to sit outside my window and take readings on that - I could get them arrested.

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.

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: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.

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.