Privacy Groups Want Feds To Investigate Targeted Ads 71
ciscoguy01 tips news that three privacy groups are asking the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether ad networks are "unfairly tracking Americans and profiting from their data." According to Wired,
"Companies named in the complaint (PDF) include Google, Yahoo, PubMatic, TARGUSinfo, MediaMath, eXelate, Rubicon Project, AppNexus, and Rocket Fuel. At issue is a growing market of targeted, real-time ads, where advertisers can choose to show ads to people based on their age, gender, income and location — as well as their recent online behavior — often on unrelated sites that let third parties track users.... Third-party cookie tracking isn't new, but as the complaint points out, marketers are increasingly trying to augment that data with other data sets, such as the social network data that Rapleaf harvests and resells.... Tying ad cookies to personally identifiable data would let marketers successfully combine online and offline data on website visitors to build a complete digital dossier on a user."
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
The government will allow the private sector to do what it is politically unable to do itself. Once enough data is collected, the state can access it under National Security Letters when it needs to. All this without the political and legal consequences of the state operating the system itself.
Not Trolling ... (Score:5, Insightful)
AFA harvesting data from social networking sites, well, if you're willing to post every detail of your life you can't be surprised if someone, or some company, is willing to suck up that data. It doesn't make it right, but I find it hard to feel sorry for people who want their lives to be a "web based reality show" for their friends but don't want anyone to actually use that information (either for marketing or for passing judgement on their character when it comes to employment, etc).
Relax (Score:3, Insightful)
As for whether the FTC will investigate, it’s hard to say — but it’s not too likely. The complaint doesn’t seem to allege any clear-cut violations of law
It is Sunday. Go mow the lawn and enjoy a beer afterwards, or write some code. The world will survive this for now.
New evil of the week? (Score:3, Insightful)
Two weeks ago it was Theora, last week was Flash, this week it's cookies?
Man, it's hard to keep up with teh evils of teh intarwebs!
Why not the other way round? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just introduce the rule that any customer contacted by a company may force them to provide a complete record (sent in paper, with a personal valid signature of the person in charge) on his personal data and how they got it, and the right to demand deletion of his record and the restriction a not use the same way again. Wrong statements should be punished by hefty fines and prison for the person signing it.
if 5% of the people do it this would clog up the system pretty much.
And? (Score:3, Insightful)
If this were a court rather than the FTC, it's be a textbook case of "dismissed based on failure to state a claim". May as well sue Ford for "profiting from selling ground transportation".
Re:Why not the other way round? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shut up and get back to consuming.
Re:Ohmigosh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:never trust anyone who complains about "fairnes (Score:3, Insightful)
Never trust anyone who thinks that "life is unfair" is right and proper.
Re:New evil of the week? (Score:3, Insightful)
If there are that many things to be 'up in arms about', then we -should- be bringing them all to the attention of everyone we can. Concentrating on just the worst one will mean the others have time to gain hold.
Cops don't all stop working on muggings when there's a murder.
Mechanics don't ignore the brakes when the transmission is blown.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
It's scary when things make too much sense...
*dons tin foil hat*
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct but they don't need National Security Letters for this. They already buy, access, and store a ton of private sector data. It's not a loophole, it's the St. Louis arch, and its been open for years.
It's a little naive to think that segments of the government haven't their fingers in the development of various private sector companies since the beginning. Between CIA venture money, DARPA grants, large government contract awards, carefully placed personnel, etc., this far from some fortunate development that fell from the sky for them.
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If I pay them will they stop spying on me? I doubt it. In fact we probably give up even more privacy by paying for content.
How can this be a price for free websites if the same applies to pay sites? Just because you don't see adds doesn't mean they aren't tracking you.
Ultimately it comes down to choice. The one you don't have. Currently you can't choose to not be tracked. Not without extra software which may or may not be successful at stopping it (kinda like virus protection). You don't get a notice about being tracked and you don't get the option to opt out. It would be one thing if you could opt out and as a result you wouldn't be able to access the content. At least then the price would be upfront instead of a dirty secret.
In truth I don't care much about targeted ads. I don't see many of them, thanks to adblock any way. Even if I did see lots of relevant ads I wouldn't click on them. When I want to buy something I go directly to the manufactures web sight or a trusted retailer. I'll do a Google search before I click on an ad. Why? Ad companies can't be trusted. It is that simple.
Don't get me started on the abuse that goes beyond privacy. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The collect calling ads on TV did more to insure people hit mute on their remote for every ad break than any other ad campaign in history. They were that fucking annoying that they are still costing advertisers money today. An ad break comes up and people hit mute so fucking fast it ain't even funny.
If you have a site that depends on ad revenue you'd best spend your time policing the content and behavior of your ad providers. Keep doing that for a bout 10 years to make up for the 10 years of no one policing them at all. Then **maybe then** I may start trusting them enough to unblock them. I'm sorry you can't get the revenue you'd like from ads. Someone shit (ad companies) in that bed and I won't climb in there with them until long after the stench is gone--and even then they'd better be damn hot. Pick another business model because everyone can smell the dookie.
Re:Give me the good old days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Privacy isn't recent (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't that privacy is a recent invention, it's that technology has made it much harder to come by. Back in the day privacy was automatic, as there was no other way it could be. This was due primarily to geographical considerations and the effort required to get information from one location to another. Once there, the "processing" of said information was another matter entirely. This wall no longer exists - acquiring information - in terms of both its scope and detail - is relatively effortless. Further, it can be disseminated almost instantaneously - to just about anywhere.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a good point. People often forget that many people in government aren't there for life. They either came from business and/or go to business after working in the government. So it isn't an either/or situation at all.
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since I *never* buy stuff based on ads (if I need a CPU or whatever, I'll research for the most appropriate), the difference between non-targeted and targeted ads is only how much information they store about me. Not that I care enough to use proxies to browse, but I don't have any reason to prefer them either.
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:5, Insightful)
People: We have learned never to trust advertisers to do anything that is remotely in our interests. Don't try to tell us you are trying to make your ads more relevant to us. We don't believe you.
The advertising industry has broken my trust for decades. It'll take at least that long for them to regain it.
Re:Give me the good old days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody wants to stop you from getting target ads, if you explicitly prefer them.
First, there are no "fundamental rights". Every right is as valid as any other. Unless you can tell me how are we supposed to distinguish between those rights without asking for your opinion.
Second, privacy is not a recent invention. The invasion of privacy is a recent invention, before that the lack of privacy wasn't an issue, because it didn't exist.
Third, it's funny how we as individuals don't have the right to keep our data private, yet no one claims that companies' secrets should be public domain. Only profit counts, right?