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DoubleClick Settles Privacy Lawsuit 72

Posted by CmdrTaco from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.
daemon lover writes "DoubleClick settles lawsuit and agrees to delete consumer information. " There really isn't a lot of substance in the article beyond saying that they will adhere to a stricter privacy policy besides purging their db.
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DoubleClick Settles Privacy Lawsuit More

DoubleClick Settles Privacy Lawsuit

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  • OK, I'll do your damn research (Score:4, Informative)

    by Hemos (editor) ( 569506 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @07:37PM (#3250414) Homepage
    There really isn't a lot of substance in the article beyond saying that they will adhere to a stricter privacy policy besides purging their db.

    OK, I'll do your damn research.

    "As part of this agreement, DoubleClick has agreed to adhere to the following practices and policies:

    Clear Notice: The company's privacy policy will include easy-to-read explanations of its online ad serving services.

    Enhanced Choice: If the company collects personally identifiable information, previously collected clickstream obtained by the company from across web sites can only be combined with the personally identifiable information after the provision of clear and conspicuous notice to the Internet user and receipt of the Internet user's opt-in choice.

    Consumer Education: The company will undertake a consumer education effort, which includes 300 million consumer privacy banner ads that invite consumers to learn more about how to protect their online privacy. Over the last two years, the company has already voluntarily delivered 100 million ads relating to consumer privacy.

    Consistency: The company will ensure that an Internet user's online data will not be used in a manner materially inconsistent with the privacy policy under which it was collected, unless the consumer has given permission to do otherwise. The company will take steps to require that a successor to DoubleClick's business does not use Internet users' online data in a manner inconsistent with the privacy policy under which that data was collected.

    Purging of Data and Cookie Life: The company will institute internal policies to ensure the protection and routine purging of data collected online. The company will also purge online data it obtained during the course of testing the manner in which online and offline data could be merged. The company has also agreed to limit to five years the life of new ad serving cookies.

    Settlement Compliance: A nationally recognized independent accounting firm will conduct annual reviews for the next two years of DoubleClick's compliance with specified terms of the settlement, expanding on DoubleClick's current auditing program with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

    Legal Fees: Legal fees and costs of up to $1.8 million will be paid by the company. In the third quarter of 2001, DoubleClick publicly announced that it had accounted for this charge as part of its operating expenses."
    (per http://www.doubleclick.com:80/us/corporate/presski t/press-releases.asp?asp_object_1=&press%5Frelease %5Fid=2584)

    The First Site I Visit Every Morning [monolinux.com]
    • > Clear Notice: The company's privacy policy will include easy-to-read explanations of its online ad serving services.

      New explanation: Any personal data not nailed down, is ours. Any personal data we can pry loose, is not nailed down.

      > Enhanced Choice: If the company collects personally identifiable information, previously collected clickstream obtained by the company from across web sites can only be combined with the personally identifiable information after the provision of clear and conspicuous notice to the Internet user and receipt of the Internet user's opt-in choice.

      <font size = microscopic> By clicking either "I accept" or "I refuse", you agree that you have opted in to receiving our marketing materials, and that you wish us to resell your data to anyone who wants it.

      > Consistency: The company will ensure that an Internet user's online data will not be used in a manner materially inconsistent with the privacy policy under which it was collected, [ ... ]

      ...which becomes much easier, now that all "privacy policies" these days are variations on "All your data are belong to us!"

      > Purging of Data and Cookie Life: The company will institute internal policies to ensure the protection and routine purging of data collected online. [...]

      Potential new internal policy: "To prevent our database from overflowing, every once in a while, we use the old cookies as primary keys of the new database, and reconstruct the data as users create new ones. Hey, it's an internal policy, it's not like anyone can prove otherwise!"

      > Settlement Compliance: A nationally recognized independent accounting firm will conduct annual reviews for the next two years of DoubleClick's compliance with specified terms of the settlement,

      ...and we thank our Andersen Consulting guy for getting such a great deal for us with Arthur Andersen!

  • In other news, the start-up 2*Click has announced that it will begin offering a new, centralized banner advertising service to Internet web sites.
  • ...DoubleClick settles lawsuit and agrees to delete consumer information ....

    Is this before or after selling their list ;)
  • ....these guys should be put out of business....

    let everyone in the DoubleClick database file DMCA charges against them.....or illegal copyright infringement on personal information collected without their expressed written consent.......

    I'm getting really tired of businesses being able to collect whatever stuff on me that they want...but as soon as I start collecting MP3's....they start crying foul.....

    Put all of them out of business with law-suits.

    • how bout we... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by packeteer ( 566398 )
      ... dont... ...how bout instead of using frivolous lawsuits we tell em what we think of them the way the system wants us to... ... with our money... dont support them or those that support them... itll be hard sure but its also harder to watch hipocracy...

      you say we should sue them frivolously and yet most of the people with the same opinion as that usually also cry foul when a company [blizzard.com] sues [eff.org] someone that we would like to support... [bnetd.org]

      ...so remember to think about the bigger consequences of what you propose before you try to represent an otherwise valid argument
    • They are being put out of business. At least the business of privacy invasion. I was one of the attorneys on the case and you hear people screaming "sue them all" then they all scream "the lawyers get 1.8 million!" [PS - I don't see much of that, I'm a small solo firm.]
  • DoubleClick settles lawsuit and agrees to delete consumer information.
    This probably just means that they're resetting all the customer marketing preferences like Yahoo did.

    Isn't it amazing how corporate America can tell you one thing and mean something completely different? And they have buildings full of people who spend all their time engineering these misunderstandings?

  • And a sigh of releif is heard by all those late night surfers...

  • It sounds to me like the only people winning here are the lawyers. They are the ones who get the little money there is in that settlement, not the people whose personal information DoubleClick already distributed.

    On a side note, simply put lines in your hosts file setting *.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1 and you never get anything from them.
  • That was a blurb...there was hardly any info.

    Be sure to visitPrivacy Policy [doubleclick.net]

    and...the settlement settlement.doubleclick.net [doubleclick.net]

    Interesting that they have a whole subdomain dedicated to this!

  • These people apparently give me lots of cookies... and cookies are sweet delicious things right? mmm... cookies...

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AnimeFreak ( 223792 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @07:54PM (#3250508) Homepage
    All of your advertisements are hosted by double click.
    • OMG All your ads are belong to double-click!!

      Howya doin' AF?

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Slashdot does that all too often. They post stories against subscriptions and big ugly banner ads, and look at what they do. They post about the MPAA being terrible, and then they post stories about DVDs for star trek, star wars, tron, etc. They post microsoft ads. They scream out against the anti-unix ads when half their site is dedicated to discrediting microsoft. And yes, they have ads from doubleclick after all their privacy issues. Trae once told me "If you don't have anything to stand for, you will fall for nothing." After telling me that I could not use anything non-free to build his site, even though some of the best tools are closed souce. Slashdot just cares about what gets them the most money, and don't really stand up for open source. I wish slashdot would a.) quit being bias and become a real news company. or b.) listen to what they spit out.
      • Rage against the machine! Fight the power!

        ... and stuff.
      • >They post stories against subscriptions and big ugly banner ads, and
        >look at what they do. They post about the MPAA being terrible, and then
        >they post stories about DVDs for star trek, star wars, tron, etc. They
        >post microsoft ads. They scream out against the anti-unix ads when half
        >their site is dedicated to discrediting microsoft. And yes, they have
        >ads from doubleclick after all their privacy issues

        That's called being impartial. Take a look around at the world of media today - print, broadcast, or online. You won't find many magazines, TV shows, or websites willing to publish stories which go against the grain of their advertisers. Macworld will never publish an article that gives an Adobe product a one-mouse rating. MSNBC will never run an interview with Linus; even their "Silicon Summit" specials reek of prefabrication. Slashdot on the other hand has maintained at least a modicum of integrity.

        Microsoft might be paying OSDN good money to run MS ads, but Slashdot isn't backing down and taking a soft stance on MS issues. Entertainment conglomerates might pay for ad space, and there are a lot of free plugs for entertainment here too (especially anime and SF) but Slashdot will still post the dirt on MPAA/RIAA/etc. And even while taking DoubleClick's money, they'll go live with stories about DoubleClick, which certainly doesn't have a good reputation among the readership; stories which are sure to draw numerous negative comments.

        >I wish slashdot would a.) quit being bias

        See above. I won't disagree that Slashdot is biased, but the examples you gave don't really prove it.

        >and become a real news company

        Real news companies make Slashdot's bias look like the center of the road.

        Shaun
    • well i wouldnt know, i've had doubleclick (or as i call em, doublefag) on my hosts file for years now, it maps to 127.0.0.1 ; ))))))
    • Well, not all of them. Some are from images.slashdot.org [slashdot.org] (the one currently on this page).

      What I did a few weeks ago was map ad.doubleclick.net to 192.168.0.1, my NAT box. I have apache running there and setup a virtual Host for ad.doubleclick.net. Then I made the errordocument for 404 a 1x1 pixel Red GIF. So anything from doubleclick basically shows up as this red dot. I hate to screw the ad-supported sites, but if they're dealing with doubleclick, then it's their own fault.
    • rm -f /bin/laden

      In order to completely destroy him and his organization, you should change that to "rm -rf /bin/laden".
  • The only site I visit regularly that serves doubleclick ads is...slashdot.
    How 'bout that?
  • Printer: $50
    Enough paper to print out total of collected consumer information: $8,000
    A way to get around losing valuable information to a lawsuit: Priceless.

    Capitalism Express, some things trickery can't buy, for everything else, well, you just don't need it anyway.

  • Which database? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Which database are they purging? Is it their only one or are there other databases with different data? Do they have backups? Who have they already sold the data to? Will whoever they sold that data to also delete it?
  • Just curious. I'm still fuzzy on why anybody's worried about information being collected. So far, the only problem I've had with it is now my email address is recieving 'special offers!' a couple of times a day.

    I'm not trying to tell anybody their concerns are unjustified, I'm seriously curious as to what I should be concerned about. In other words, if I take a stand against Double Click, I'd like to be educated as to why. That's all.

    • Just curious. I'm still fuzzy on why anybody's worried about information being collected. So far, the only problem I've had with it is now my email address is recieving 'special offers!' a couple of times a day.

      doubleclick was particularly dangerous from a privacy perspective because they served ads on so many different sites. this lets them piece together a much more comprehensive picture of your online activity than any commercial site can (since your browser permits access to all dblclick cookies, even through your're browsing somewhere else).

      (warning - unsubstantiated statistics to follow)
      as an aside, more sites seem to be moving back to serving ads off of the same server as the page itself (e.g. nytimes [nytimes.com]). might be due to the with the hosts 127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net trick.

  • Was any of the data sold? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MeNeXT ( 200840 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @08:42PM (#3250692)
    It's not quite clear if any info has been sold to third parties. If it has will this data be erased?


    Do we have a resource with more info on this issue?

    • Funny you should ask that... The author of the Internet White Pages went to work with us one day and he was talking about how he got sent before a senate hearing regarding privacy. Apparently not very many people liked the fact that he was trauling UseNet for email addresses and names and so forth and putting them in to a data file. Anywho the senate told thim that he and another big name company (can't remember who), had to delete the databases. Well he said sure and didn't. He sold it to another company and they announced it in the press who they got it from. Well the senate was not pleased and they threatened to put him in JAIL. Apparently they have the authority to put people in jail. With this look back at history it will be interesting to see what DoubeClick will do.... I hope those bastards go to jail... I sure hate seeing DoubleClick adds on SlashDot.
  • Yeah, I'm sure we can believe DC's word on this one, as they've been so helpful and honest in the past.

    Lawyer: So we need to comply with this agreement as soon as possible.

    DC VP: Sure, no problem. Hey Phil, delete the database, ok?

    Tech: Alright, here we go...

    *clickety click*

    Tech: OK, it's all wiped out boss.
    Later that afternoon...

    DC VP: Got that backup of the DB restored yet Phil?

    Tech: Almost done, just another GB to go...
  • I've been checking out the URLs to popups I get so I can block their host names, forward them to 127.0.0.1 I noticed when going to tripod websites, the popups were sending a little bit more info than I care to give out. Now I usually don't give a damn about privacy. Because it's mostly anonymous and doesn't matter to me whatsoever. But these sometimes get very specific.
    In google, I did a search for "quake 3 console commands timedemo" I found one page on a tripod members website, popup came up. I look at the URL to the popup, and lookydo, tripod is sending the entire search string that I was looking for at Google.com to doubleclick.net
    http://ln.doubleclick.net/adi/tr. ln/memberpopup;kw =quake+3+console+commands+timedemo;h=misc;sz=468x6 0;ord=153227739823552?

    To do a test on it, I searched for "tripod pr0n" came up with this result. Not only does it have my google search string, but my IP address (not that this matters, doubleclick gets it automatically when I download the banner, why is it in the URL?!) Along with the specific member I'm visiting and the specific webpage on his site I'm visiting.
    http://members.tripod.com/adm/popup/roa dmap.shtml? member_name=iron_mousey&path=updates.html&client_i p=63.205.211.142&ts=1017517610&ad_type=POPUP&categ ory=ent&search_string=tripod+pr0n&id=630279c715479 b78319b5f1116d96f5e

    For those of you doing the HOSTS file adding 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net thing.... Here's a 404.html file that I wrote up. Basically set this file as the 404 file to your webserver. It'll automatically close pop-ups for you.

    <script>
    var done;
    done = false;
    if (parent) {
    if (parent.href) {
    //it is a frame
    //do nothing
    done = true;
    }
    }
    //if ((!done) && (self.location.href==top.location.href)) {
    if ((!done) && (self==top)) {
    //popup or top level page
    self.close();
    }
    </script>
    <!--
    This is crap for IIS. For some stupid reason, the file needs to be of a certain size.
    The Javascript above does not count as enough data for a 404 file? Odd.
    insert dummy data here until 404 file works properly.
    moo
    blah
    cow
    moo
    blah
    cow
    -->
    • For those of you doing the HOSTS file adding 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net thing....

      I prefer the method of making your local DNS server authoritative for doubleclick.net and doubleclick.com, so ANY permutation of those domains never results in a request outside the local network...

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