NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] WSJ: "Web Firms to Adopt 'No Track' Button"
WSJ: "Web Firms to Adopt 'No Track' Button" http://j.mp/zZGRLs (This message on Google+) - - - http://j.mp/Aq94K2 (WSJ) "A coalition of Internet giants including Google Inc. has agreed to support a do-not-track button to be embedded in most Web browsers-a move that the industry had been resisting for more than a year." - - - Now, here are the real ironies. As you'll see from reading the story, what this is about is mainly personalized advertising from online services. But reputable firms have been handling this through mechanisms that typically don't tie back to individuals' actual identities in the first place. Some (like Google) provide a "dashboard" that users can already employ to control personalized ads or turn off personalization completely. Turn off personalization, and two things happen. (1) You get more "random" ads (you're still going to get ads) that are less likely to be of any interest. (2) Those ads will be less valuable to advertisers, over time potentially undermining the financial support structures of many Web services most users enjoy for free. Meanwhile, out in the brick and mortar world, information regarding our bank transactions, credit card purchases, voting records (yes, voting activity records!), and all manner of other activities are tracked, sold, sliced, and diced, then fed to the credit reporting agencies, in ways that *really* can impact people's lives in serious (and often negative) ways. This data is often tied to our *real* identities through bank accounts, social security numbers, and so on. Yet most of the political public attention is on personalized Web ads, which are usually deployed through anonymous mechanisms. Interesting priorities, eh? --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad