The online advertising industry’s version of a do-not-track mechanism officially launched today, 29Aug2011, and quickly drew derision from consumer and privacy advocates.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau has made it mandatory for its members — a who’s who of the online ad world, including Google, Microsoft and Facebook — to embrace a brand new code of conduct that requires use of a turquoise-colored triangle with a lowercase letter ‘i’ at center.
“The code is mandatory for IAB members,” say Mike Zaneis, IAB senior vice president and general counsel. The icon “is mandatory for certain third party practices under the code,” he says.
The icon enables consumers to click through to a web page where they can opt out of being silently tracked online, a widespread practice for collecting behavioral information that helps advertisers deliver more relevant ads.
The IAB has called on most of its 500 members to voluntarily display the blue triangle on web pages carrying hidden programs — such as tracking cookies and web beacons — that can track precisely where you go and with whom you associate on the Internet.
The self-regulatory campaign proves “that the industry can successfully deliver transparency and choice to consumers,†says Zaneis. “We’re doing so today instead of waiting for a false promise of government regulation in the future.â€
Balber
However, the icon is ineffective, contends Carmen Balber, director of the Washington D.C.-based non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.
“The IAB’s program does not give consumers the ability to opt-out of tracking – either in theory or practice,†says Balber. “Companies who participate agree to stop targeted advertisements for consumers that opt out. However they may continue to track (others) at will.
Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, says the icon is “designed to be ignored†and gives only general information on how advertising and social networks track Internet users.
According to this study by The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University, only 11.3% of IAB members to date displayed the icon, which has been available since April 2010.
Zaneis contends the Stanford study is off the mark. He says 350 companies — including non-IAB members — have licensed the blue icon and are actively using it. “The icon appears in or around tens of billions of online ads every day,†says Zaneis.
Is self-regulation enough?
In a privacy study by the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley, some 84% of respondents said they objected to being tracked online.
Even so the online ad industry is pushing hard against privacy advocates and elected officials who believe collection and use of personal information gathered by advertising and social networks, in support of selling more relevant advertisers, has gotten out of hand.
The IAB wants President Obama to endorse self-regulation, including the turquoise triangle, in a forthcoming White House white paper, Chester says.
And the group’s most influential members, led by Google and Facebook, are lobbying the Federal Trade Commission to do likewise in a privacy report due from the agency before year’s end, Chester says.
Chester
Self-regulation efforts by the online advertising industry have been tried for more than a decade. Yet self-regulation remains skewed to getting users to opt into being tracked “via using your social data, video and other free downloads and engaging online apps that increasingly work via stealth means,†says Chester.
Chester’s organization registered this formal complaint with the FTC today. (Clarification. 30Aug2010. This formal complaint was filed by the EU Privacy commissioners to IAB Europe; CDD forwarded it to the FTC.)
Tracking data culled from Internet searches and surfing is increasingly getting commingled with the information Internet users disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs. And personal disclosures made on popular social networks, along with the preferences expressed via Web applications on smartphones and tablet PCs saturating cool smartphones and tablet PCs are getting tossed into the mix.
Privacy advocates worry that health companies, insurers, lenders, employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to use unfairly against people.
The icon “is another example of the failure of self-regulation to protect consumers from unwanted monitoring of every move they make on the Internet and their mobile devices,†says Balber. “Action by Congress and the FTC to require a Do Not Track me option is crucial for consumers to gain control over their own information.â€
