Online Tracking Firms To Launch Opt-Out Program

storagedude writes "Threatened by the prospect of tougher US online privacy legislation, a handful of data collection companies have banded together to create a voluntary system for consumers to see what information companies have and to opt out of cookies or edit the data collected. The Better Advertising Project's Open Data Partnership is a long way from a viable solution — scores of tracking and big-name online companies have yet to sign on to the effort — but it is nonetheless the first attempt to put all this online tracking data in one place. Coupled with Microsoft's announcement this week that it plans to add a do-not-track mechanism to IE9, it appears that the FTC's call for a do-not-track system may be gaining some traction. The Open Data Partnership will be particularly interesting, as consumers will be getting a good look at the data collected about them. Better Advertising already lets consumers opt out of some behavioral ad targeting, and about 5% of those who click through to learn more actually opt out (PDF, slide 5). It will be interesting to see if the opt-out rate changes after consumers see what data is actually collected." To be clear, they aren't saying they'll stop collecting the data. They'll just make it available to users and let people opt out of getting ads based on the information, or simply remove anything they don't want shared.

Comments

Opt out rates are low eh?

[Fluffeh]

Could that be becuase more people (as in, not us nerds here) don't even know that they are being tracked like crazy or what it can mean to them in the long term when all those little tiny bits of data start getting put together and someone ends up with a perfect picture of that person?

Re:Opt out rates are low eh?

[martin-boundary]

but unless a company loudly announces it has data of this kind these laws are unenforceable.

However, employees of such companies might want to consider leaking this information to the public, so that the company can be taken to court for failing to follow the laws.

Re:Opt out rates are low eh?

[morethanapapercert]

Put me down as one of the people who fall into both categories. I know that my opt-out won't be heeded. (I may be wrong, but I'm certain)

Actual laws against spam don't seem to have diminished the number of spam messages I get. I've actually taken the time to try and opt out of some the less annoying, slightly more legitimate emails and I've noticed something interesting that seems to be common to all of the opt-out pages I have seen.

A) If/when you sign up for something, you are implicitly agreeing to having your contact details and other information shared/sold to "business partners, service providers and other affiliates" but when you opt-out later, it applies only to the company directly. You'll still get spammed by those other firms.

B) They NEVER say that they will delete your data, just that they won't use it themselves. On it's own, your data is almost worthless, but in the aggregate with thousands of other people with similar profiles it can be worth quite a sum. So opting out still leaves the problem of companies unknown to me, collecting data about me against my will and then selling that data to god-knows-who anywhere in the world. (It's been alleged that intelligence agencies routinely obtain these data stores to cross reference against their existing files.) By the time you get around to opting out, your data could easily have been sold and re-sold dozens of times.

C)The fact that I am willing to actually read the Terms and chose to opt-out is itself another detail to add and cross reference with any other data that they have; or think they have, linked to me. A list composed purely of people who opt-out of (for example) the email alerts that they automatically got subscribed to when they joined a tech forum is probably pretty worthless for a fake Viagra spammer, but potentially worthwhile for a vendor of security and privacy protecting software. (oh the irony!)

Re:Why opt out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the years I've had enough contact with the online marketing business to last me a lifetime. *puke*

It's partially rooted in their delusion that they actually think they're doing the average user a service by trying to sell him all kinds of crap (read: "the customer has needs and online advertisement facilitates the contact to vendors to satisfy this need"[/goodspeak]).

That's why they want the opt-in as default, to reach as many people as possible and guarantee them a larger revenue through possible sales.

Re:Legislation will be needed.

[Mashiki]

In Canada we call it the privacy act. Works pretty well, unless you're dealing with a company outside of Canada. In which case as a Canadian you simply ignore everything they scream at you.

AC

[machine321]

I find it amusing that most of the comments so far are as AC...

Re:No silly - Opt in!

[Opportunist]

Hope you don't mind if I add to this. Maybe we can write a "how to sell to people who're not idiots and hence have the money to buy your stuff 'cause they didn't waste it on crap" guide.

1. See defaria's posting. Yelling at me is most likely not impressing me. It annoys me. To the point where I do not WANT to hear from you EVER AGAIN. Even if I should ever need a product that you could provide, your name has been tarnished by your own actions, it's now something I connect with "annoying" rather than "pleasant" or "helpful". And nobody wants to buy something that reeks of "annoying".

2. I will look for something that I need. So make sure you can be found. Ponder what people might look for when they're looking for your product and make sure that you can be found by that term in the important search engines. And that means NOT ONLY Google, and maybe Bing.

3. Make sure that you are ONLY found by terms that match your product. If I find you no matter whether I look for a new monitor, a new stereo, a new sofa or a new refrigerator, but you're making only dildos, you're annoying me again. The only thing you will accomplish is that I will automatically change my search pattern from "$thing_that_I_want" to "$thing_that_I_want -$your_company".

4. Make sure I find the specs of your product EASILY. Without wading through pages of flash animated marketing drivel. When I want to get something, I usually have an idea what I want in the product. And if I don't, telling me with a lot of adjectives just how great your product is ain't going to impress me. Tell me WHY it is good. I believe you that you think it's good, don't worry about that. Give me the specs.

5. And don't pad the specs with crap to make them look like I get more than I actually get. We all know you love those tables with "this feature" in one column and "YES!" in the one next to it, but when you tout a remote control as a YES! feature for a TV set, all it tells me is that you don't have any real defining features because you have to present something as a feature that every crappy TV set out there has today. It is impressive to have a long feature list, yes. It is NOT impressive if that list consists to more than 50% of non-features like remote control, stereo sound speakers or an antenna jack.

6. Let's assume you have me hooked and I want to buy it: LET ME! I cannot count the times that I actually decided to buy something only to find out that I can't without first jumping through more hoops than the item is worth. If you require me to tell you everything about me including my shoe size and my mom's maiden name, you're wasting my time. I don't care about your statistics. You get what you need to deliver the item to me and what you need to get money from me. Nothing more. If you want more, I take my business elsewhere.