In Context

Kudos to the WSJ for publishing these articles. It takes guts to shine  light on a topic that’s sure to cause heartburn in the CEOs of some of Wall Street’s Internet darlings. And the IAB. Do I sense moral courage? What’s the world coming to! Have a look…

From the Sites Feed Personal Details To New Tracking Industry July 30th:

The largest U.S. websites are installing new and intrusive consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites—in some cases, more than 100 tracking tools at a time—a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The tracking files represent the leading edge of a lightly regulated, emerging industry of data-gatherers who are in effect establishing a new business model for the Internet: one based on intensive surveillance of people to sell data about, and predictions of, their interests and activities, in real time.

….

If “you were in the Gap, and the sales associate said to you, ‘OK, from now on, since you shopped here today, we are going to follow you around the mall and view your consumer transactions,’ no person would ever agree to that,” Sen. George LeMieux, R-Florida, said this week in a Senate hearing on Internet privacy.

Active clients and personal data stores resolve these thorny privacy issues in the best way possible. Why? because they shift of control of  capture and disclosure of a person’s data to the person.

The online advertising industry will eventually get there. The FTC will too. The EU is getting there fastest. See for example, Making the FTC Look Tame: The EU Targets Behavioral Profiling in the July 26, 2010 in Privacy & Security Law Report:

Last month, Europe took a major step toward a notice and opt-in regulatory model for behavioral advertising. On June 22, the Article 29 Working Party, the EU-level data protection advisory body comprised of representatives of all EU member state data protection authorities, issued a detailed and very restrictive opinion on online behavioral advertising. The opinion requires network advertisers to obtain user opt-in to placement of advertising cookies on user devices, to provide prominent notice of profiling, and to erase cookies periodically. It also requires website publishers to inform the visitors about the ad network used and the profiling that takes place. The Working Party will reach out to industry stakeholders and invites public comment and a “dialogue” with industry regarding how to implement the broad principles it articulates in the opinion

And then again on the same day (July 30th) from the WSJ: The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets. A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series.

And checkout the excellent What They Know tool. Graphics, data, explore!

This press release from TRUSTe mentions the results of a recent survey (since they don’t support I-Cards or OpenID+AX you’ll have to fill in a form to get the survey . Here are a few nuggets:

“…two out of three consumers are aware that their browsing information may be collected by a third party for advertising purposes.”

As expected. But here’s the interesting part:

“…consumer discomfort with behavioral advertising declined year over year (from 57 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009)…”

and:

“…although consumers worry about protecting their private information online, they are growing more accustomed to behavioral targeting,…”

Because, its all about relevance:

“…some even preferring to be served targeted advertisements from brands they know and trust over irrelevant, intrusive advertisements. In fact, 72 percent of those surveyed said they found online advertising intrusive and annoying when the products and services being advertised were not relevant to their wants and needs.”

But the key challenge is privacy:

“Even though consumers want customization in their online experiences, they also fear an invasion of privacy. Half of all consumers still say they are uncomfortable with advertisers using their browsing history to serve them relevant ads, and many make concerted efforts to achieve anonymity when surfing the web.”

And that, my friends is why I believe so strongly that we need to shift control to the individual over their online identities, profiles, and social relationships. If I consent to release it to ad network A or brand B, then the privacy issue is off the table by defintion. Privacy is all about you deciding who can see what about you. As I said at a behavioral tracking conference last year “spying [behavioral tracking] is okay, as long as you’re spying on yourself”. And then you decide what to reveal about yourself.