Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Jon Leibowitz indicated that the organization might be preparing sanctions on the online advertising industry with regard to its user-tracking practices. "When
you're surfing the Internet, you never know who is peering over your shoulder or how many marketers are watching," Leibowitz said during an FTC online privacy forum. He added that industry
self-regulation has been inadequate.
The next step for the organization, he said, could be to create clarity standards for Web sites' privacy policies--pointing to a study revealing that
only one percent of those with a high school education can understand the heavy legal and tech language in large companies' privacy policies. Leibowitz also suggested that behavioral targeting
practices be made an opt-in decision. "People should have dominion over their computers," he said. "The current 'don't ask, don't tell' in online tracking and profiling has to end."
All of
this is bad news for the online advertising sector--and to a greater extent, the media sector, as advertising revenue has become the underpinning of most Web-based initiatives. Indeed, IAB President
Randall Rothenberg fired a strong warning off to the FTC, saying the federal organization should stay out of regulating the online advertising sector, or it risks curtailing the "extraordinary
pattern of innovation" on the Web.
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