Commentary
Privacy Experts Urge Lawmakers To Address Ethics Of Behavioral Targeting
- by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 12, 2011
Privacy bills that would regulate online behavioral targeting are pending on the Hill right now, as is the Federal Trade Commission's proposal for a universal “do-not-track” mechanism.
For the most part, officials are calling for companies to inform users about online behavioral targeting -- or tracking users as they surf the Web in order to serve them targeted ads -- and to allow them to opt out. Across the pond, meanwhile, regulators are considering whether the EU's privacy laws require companies to obtain users' explicit consent to online tracking or whether opt-out mechanisms suffice.
But even as lawmakers, advocates and industry executives debate the various proposals, they aren't addressing a more fundamental question about the ethics of online tracking, two privacy experts argue in a new paper.
“The debate raging around DNT [do-not-track] and the specific details of its implementation disguises a more fundamental disagreement among stakeholders about deeper societal values and norms,” Omar Tene, a fellow at the digital rights group Center for Democracy and Technology, and Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the think tank Future of Privacy Forum, write. “Unless policymakers address this underlying normative question -- is online behavioral tracking a social good or an unnecessary evil -- they may not be able to find a solution for implementing user choice in the context of online privacy.”
The 55-page paper, “To Track or 'Do Not Track': Advancing Transparency and Individual Control,” goes on to examine various tracking methods as well as regulatory proposals.
The authors argue that questions about mechanisms for notifying people about targeting and obtaining their consent can't be answered until people make a judgment about whether the benefits of online behavioral targeting outweigh the potential downsides.
“Whether a given practice requires opt-in, opt-out or no consent; and if so where and how choices should be presented; camouflage deep value judgments which have yet to be made,” the authors argue. “This is not to say that a value judgment needs to be as stark as a binary choice between privacy and efficiency. On the contrary, a more nuanced equilibrium is needed taking into account the benefits of not only privacy rights but also access to information and services, freedom of speech and economic efficiency.”
Wendy Davis is a Senior Writer at MediaPost. You can reach Wendy at wdavis@mediapost.com
Quite frankly I am a little confused about the concern for privacy on the Internet. There are two main reasons for this.
1) Do people think that the information (Videos, Blogs, Reports, Reviews, etc...) just appear online? It certainly seems that this is the general perception. Do people think that it is a given right to have information at their finger tips? The reality is that the information populated onto the web is done by people (for the most part). Furthermore, those websites that are being accessed are built by people. In most cases those people are employed by other people within actual businesses that pay those people and pay to have their sites visible and online. There are costs associated with content and those costs need to be covered by someone. If you access this information then you OWE it to the content provider to share something of value in exchange for access to this organized content. If it is not currency then it is the next best thing to currency and, in this case, it is contactable & trackable information about you. Why then does "FREE" only apply to you as the person accessing the content? Your personal information is the currency of the Internet and if you care to surf and read from everyone else’s hard work w/o paying real currency then your personal information should suffice as the next best thing.
2) RELEVANCY - So, you're on the web and looking at this awesome video of a guy swinging from a rope directly onto his horse from the 3rd story of a building. The video is surrounded by ads (cuz, like I said above... hosting costs money). Wouldn't you rather see ads of stuff that you might like to buy or would you prefer those ads be of something completely unrelated to your interests?
Stop with the criticism of information sharing and with this ‘Privacy’ protection. Time Magazine's Joel Stein wrote an excellent (and humorous) article on a similar topic a while back. I encourage the skeptics and opponents to take a look-see ( http://tiny.cc/7lxeg ). If the link doesn't open the article is called "Data Mining: How companies Know Everything About You".
Anyhow... Your information has been shared for decades. Today you should be happy that at least it is organized and that the people that share it know more about you to share more relevant and on-point information. In the end we all benefit.
My two cents...