Commuters heading into work this week via the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge are scheduled to see a whimsical billboard tilting at a serious issue: Google’s practice of tracking which Web sites Internet users visit, without first gaining their permission.
“Google tracks you. We don’t,” declares a duck in a red bow tie.
The ad touts DuckDuckGo, a 2-year-old search engine that has created a stir by posting an illustrated guide — DontTrack.us — showing what can happen if you Google the word “herpes.”
Google allows your search terms to pass along to the Web page you click to; a notation of your visit can be collected by multiple ad networks, including those affiliated with Google, according to Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo’s founder.
This personal information can then be used to target ads to you on millions of Web pages, Weinberg says. Soon, the ad networks have plenty of information to uniquely identify and profile you, he says.
Complaints about this kind of online tracking prompted the Federal Trade Commission last month to call for a “Do Not Track” mechanism that would enable consumers to opt out of being tailed around the Web. The FTC is taking public comments. The billboard should go up by Thursday.
“The Bay Bridge is our Times Square,” says Brock Woody of outdoor advertising giant Clear Channel. “Everyone will see it.”
Google spokeswoman Christine Chen contends Weinberg is playing on people’s fears.
“We recognize our responsibility to protect the data that users entrust to us,” she says. “We give them meaningful choices to protect their privacy.”
Weinberg, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched DuckDuckGo in 2008.
He recently began tuning DuckDuckGo to protect privacy in response to rising concerns about tracking. “We do not store or share any personal information,” he says.