IP Democracy: Do Consumers Care About Behavioral Targeting?

I haven't seen any good research on the issue, but I would suspect that the vast majority of Internet users have only the vaguest sense that most web sites, online applications and search engines track massive amounts of detailed data about their online activities. The goal of this data analysis is usually to deliver up targeted advertising that comports with the users' interests.

But this so-called behavioral analysis bugs a lot of people. Even though most web companies use the tracking data on an anonymous basis, a lot of consumer groups fear that no one is minding the ship to make sure that the anonymous tracking doesn't slip into personally identifiable treasure troves of information.

Yesterday, a coalition of consumer advocates asked the feds to set up a mandatory do-not-track list for the Internet that would, more or less, function the same way that the telephone do-no-call list works. This public call for action preceded an FTC symposium on behavioral targeting and privacy, which started this morning and will last through tomorrow. (Webcast of the event is here.)

The FTC meeting features a who's who of the Internet and consumer protection worlds, along with a number of leading academicians who study web-based privacy matters.

All this activity follows some big moves in the online advertising business, kicked off by Google's deal to buy DoubleClick and Microsoft's countermove to buy aQuantive. With that much tracking power consolidated into so few hands, it's only natural that privacy fears are on the rise.

Yet, unlike the telephone do-not-call initiative, this is not a consumer-spurred issue. No one out there in Internet land is feeling any pain from all the behavioral targeting. In fact, it's usually just the opposite. More and more relevant, and therefore interesting, ads and content are getting served up to users. Users are simply not aware of what's going on behind the scenes, and, I would argue, probably don't care about the data collection and won't care about it until some nasty public incident reveals that online privacy is a tenuous thing.

Perhaps the FTC's meeting, combined with the pressure by consumer advocates, will foster greater consumer understanding that every keystroke they enter, every link they click, is tracked and recorded somewhere by somebody.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 1, 2007 12:15 PM to IP Democracy