Last fall, a coalition of American groups began to call for the establishment of a “Do Not Track List” to parallel the telemarketing Do Not Call List.
Their intent is to protect consumers from having their activities tracked and used by advertisers such as the cookies planted by various websites.
Across an ever-growing array of electronic devices, from the Internet to mobile devices and beyond, consumers leave behind a vast amount of behavioral information that is being tracked and targeted without their knowledge. This “behavioral tracking” — the practice of collecting and compiling a record of individual consumers’ activities, interests, preferences, and/or communications over time — places consumers’ privacy at risk, and is not covered by federal law.
Business Week had an article in November that described why such a law shouldn’t be necessary.
One of the concerns, of course, is that most free content on the web is supported by advertiser based business models. Advertisers will pay a premium to target the ‘right’ eyeballs.
The flip side is that people should be rightfully concerned about the ability to control the type of personal information that is available to strangers.
There is a balance of consumer interests at stake on this issue. Behavioral targeted advertising is a rapidly growing business for service providers, but it has attracted associated controversial policy issues. How do we establish an informed discussion of the issues?
Bob Dykes, CEO of NebuAd, will be participating on a panel at The Canadian Telecom Summit entitled Consumers in a Multi-screen World – examining the technologies, applications and issues associated with converged services.
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do not track, DNCL, behavioral tracking