Three consumer advocacy groups are urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the online data-collection activities of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other companies that engage in real-time advertising auctions and data exchanges. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and the World Privacy Forum believe an FTC investigation is warranted to counter what they characterize as growing consumer privacy threats.
Technologies that enable the real-time profiling, targeting and auctioning of consumer data are becoming commonplace as companies incorporate an array of outside data sources for sale online, warned PIRG’s Ed Mierzwinski. “In just the last few years, a growing and barely regulated network of sellers and marketers has gained massive information advantages over consumers,” he said.
Stealth Data Collection
Companies engaged in online profiling and behavioral targeting are employing practices that fail either to protect consumer privacy or provide for reasonable understanding of the data-collection process, including significant variations in how cookies are stored and the outside data sources used, the groups noted. Other practices include the instantaneous sale and trading of individual users without their permission or awareness, they wrote.
“Consumers will be most shocked to learn that companies are instantaneously combining the details of their online lives with information from previously unconnected offline databases without their knowledge, let alone consent,” Mierzwinski said.
The groups characterize this system as a “massive stealth data-collection apparatus” that poses a significant threat to user privacy. “It also robs individual users of the ability to reap the financial benefits of their own data — while publishers, ad exchangers, and information brokers” “cash in on this information,” the consumer watchdogs observed.
U.S. consumers, especially during this time of economic hardship, need a commission that is proactive in protecting their interests, said CDD Executive Director Jeff Chester.
“FTC inaction has encouraged the data-collection and…