Four Missed Opportunities for Privacy 67
The NY Times has a blog posting on the occasion of the Internet advertising industry's release (PDF) of what it describes as tough new standards governing the collection and use of data about users' behavior. The Times' Saul Hansell describes these "new" standards as more of the same old status quo, and outlines four privacy-enhancing ideas, being discussed by Google, Yahoo, the FTC, and Congress, that the IAB has completely ignored. These principles are: every ad should explain itself; users should be able to see data collected about them; browsers should help enforce user choices about tracking; and some information (medical and financial) is simply too sensitive to track.
"Cookies" (Score:2, Funny)
There's a grain of truth here. Cookies have a nice cutesy name to them that makes them seem innocent. It's "just" an edible text file, that's all!
Why not call them something else? Take a page out of PETA's book; call them turds or something!