Skip to main content

Behavioral Targetting of Consumers in Online Advertising

By Daniel Silva
Agence France-Presse

Campaigners are stepping up efforts to curb online tracking of Internet use by firms that deliver adverts tailored to the specific interests of consumers, as polls reveal widespread unease with the practice.

Corporations have always collected personal data on the people who buy their products but in the past this information came from sources such as magazine subscriptions and warranty cards, experts at a three-day privacy conference that wrapped up Friday in Madrid said.

Now it is flowing at breakneck speed into databases from multiple online sources, from dating services to newspaper websites, giving companies the unprecedented power to create detailed profiles of their customers, in many cases without their being aware of it, they added.

"There are so many grey areas in advertising that if the end user knew about it all, it would make their hair grey," said Jorg Polakiewicz, the head of the law reform department at the Council of Europe, a European rights watchdog.

The body is working on a new legal instrument on consumer profiling that it hopes will assist its 47 member states to better protect individuals from abuses, he added. So far only a few member states have legislation in place.

In the United States, Rick Boucher, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, announced in September that he planned to introduce privacy legislation to regulate this so-called behavioral targeting of consumers.

The move toward greater regulation comes as surveys in the United States and Europe show that a majority of consumers on both sides of the Atlantic are against corporations monitoring their Internet use for marketing purposes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buried Treasures in Bohol Philippines

Written by Joe Espiritu       Four persons died in a treasure hunting accident last week. They died for nothing. Many had lost their shirts in the venture, the propensity for Filipinos to get rich quick attribute to the treasure hunting mania. The sad part is that only the ignorant venture on the search, those in the know, being sure that nothing will come out of the effort would not think of investing money, time and effort – this time lives – in a fruitless enterprise.        There had been stories of people getting rich uncovering treasure troves in unlikely places. Most stories are false. Ancient graves of archeological and anthropological value had been desecrated by treasure hunters. They had found nothing. Those people may have struck it rich but not from some hidden riches. Contrary to what other people say, there are no buried treasures in Bohol . If there had been, they were unearthed years ago.         If one ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Detonators in Hebei, China

The death toll has risen to eight after Saturday's explosion triggered by detonators illegally manufactured and stored at a residential building in north China's Hebei Province, local authorities said Monday. Five more bodies were retrieved while rescuers were clearing the debris in the city of Baoding, the city government said in a statement late Monday. Another 27 people are still under treatment in hospital, it added. Two suspects, a 38-year-old man surnamed Ge and his 42-year-old girlfriend, turned themselves in to police Monday noon in the eastern province of Anhui. Ge and two relatives started producing detonators in 2009. Due to poor sales, the three stored unsold detonators at a house of the six-storey building in Dongwuyao Village. The explosion that occurred Saturday afternoon toppled part of the building and also shattered the glass windows of buildings 200 meters away.
Post a Comment
Read more

U.S. economic data reacts to crude oil price

Crude prices rose on Thursday as U.S. economic data came in positive and continuing unrest in the Middle East caused supplies fears. Market sentiment was boosted after the Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate, much faster than 2.0 percent it estimated last month. It was the quickest quarterly growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2011, helped by faster inventory accumulation and export growth, which offset weak consumer spending and a drop in business investment. Meanwhile, a report from the Labor Department added to the upbeat tone. The report showed U.S. initial jobless claims declined 23,000 in the week ended Nov. 24 to 393,000, as effect of Hurricane Sandy faded. Pending home sales climbed 5.2 percent in October, surging to its highest level in more than five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. Traders were closely watching the situation in the Middle East, in particular the viole...
Post a Comment
Read more