aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Do not track list
Most consumers are familiar with do-not-call lists, which are meant to keep telemarketers from phoning them. Soon people will be able to sign up for do-not-track lists, which will help shield their Web surfing habits from the prying eyes of marketers.
Such lists will not reduce the number of ads that people see online, but they will prevent advertisers from using their online meanderings to deliver specific ad pitches to them.
Today the AOL division of Time Warner will announce a service of this type, which will be up and running by the end of the year. Other programs are likely to be articulated soon, as online advertisers prepare for a two-day forum on privacy to be held by the Federal Trade Commission.
AOL says it is setting up a new Web site that will link consumers directly to opt-out lists run by the largest advertising networks. The site’s technology will ensure that people’s preferences are not erased later.
I won’t be opting out; I want the benefits of being tracked. But to have them we need to build an apparatus that ensures our privacy and appropriately safeguards and regulates and access to information and limits how it can be used. This is at least a start in that direction:
AOL executives say they are happy to give people a way to keep their Internet habits private, even though that would undercut AOL’s own behavioral targeting efforts. In July AOL acquired a behavioral ad network company, Tacoda, that has been promoting opt-out options to users for a year.
“We all have to build toward a future where we are delivering ads people want and not just ads we want people to see,” said Dave Morgan, the founder of Tacoda who now works at AOL. “The only way to do that is to listen to consumers.”
LATER: Sweating Through Fog has fun with last year’s AOL search breach.
