You can sign up for the “do not call” registry to keep marketers from calling you, and now the Federal Trade Commission is proposing a similar option for the web. On Wednesday, the agency proposed a “do not track” mechanism that would be universally offered to online users as part of a larger framework to protect privacy online.
Marketers are increasingly tracking users’ web-surfing habits, a practice that allows them to target advertisements based on users’ interests. But privacy groups and many consumers have raised concerns about such tracking.
‘Consumer Choice’
The proposed framework appears in a preliminary staff report issued Wednesday. The FTC said the proposal aims to “balance the privacy interests of consumers with innovation that relies on consumer information to develop beneficial new products and services.”
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told news media that his agency seeks to promote “privacy, transparency, business innovation, and consumer choice.”
The staff report said industry efforts related to privacy through self-regulation “have been too slow, and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.”
Leibowitz said the FTC will follow up its policy recommendations with action against companies “that cross the line with consumer data and violate consumers’ privacy,” especially if children or teens are affected.
As online technology has advanced, the FTC noted, the means for rapid data collection and sharing have similarly advanced — often invisibly to consumers. Privacy policies are commonly posted to explain what companies are doing, but the FTC said such statements are “long, legalistic disclosures that consumers usually don’t read and don’t understand if they do.” The burden, the FTC said, is too much on forcing consumers to protect their privacy.
The “do not track” option recommended by the report isn’t specified, except to say that it should be a “simple, easy to use mechanism” so that consumers can…