FTC Suggests “Privacy by Design”
FTC
(Image is in the Public Domain)
The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new standard of privacy in American Industry recently:
“Despite some good actors, self-regulation of privacy has not worked adequately and is not working adequately for American consumers,” Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the trade commission, said. “We’d like to see companies work a lot faster to make consumer choice easier.”
No kidding? Companies won't regulate themselves? Unbelievable!
Anyway, the article goes on to say:
The online advertising industry, Mr. Zaneis said, would suffer “significant economic harm” if the government controlled the do-not-track mechanism and there was “a high participation rate similar to that of do not call.” Mr. Zaneis said the industry would continue to build upon a self-regulatory framework and had recently put in place the use of icons on select online advertisements that allow users to opt out of customized advertising.Oh boo hoo! Companies that have been tracking and tagging you like cattle would be upset if they had to stop. Waa.
Whether or not the FTC will get traction with this is uncertain, but it won't matter much if it's built into the browser AS IT SHOULD BE. Fortunately, Firefox at least is looking into this in an upcoming version.
Tags: Behavioral Marketing, FTC, Regulation, Targeted Ads