WASHINGTON - The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday backed the creation of a "Do Not Track" option - similar to the popular National Do Not Call Registry for people who want to avoid telemarketers - to allow consumers to protect their privacy as they use the Web.
The recommendation, which would require congressional action, comes in a lengthy draft report titled "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change."
Many websites collect data from people, including past searches and sites visited, and share that data with advertisers, who use it to target online pitches. Those pitches are known as behavioral advertising because they are tailored to a person's behavior.
"Consumers live in a world where information about their purchasing behavior, online browsing habits, and other online and offline activity is collected, analyzed, combined, used, and shared, often instantaneously and invisibly," the FTC said.
The agency said that "long, incomprehensible privacy policies that consumers typically don't read, let alone understand" are not the answer.
Neither are voluntary industry efforts, such as the Network Advertising Initiative tool to allow consumers to opt out of behavioral advertising offered by its members, which include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Those efforts have "fallen short," the FTC said.
Consumers need to be able to easily choose if they want to prevent websites from collecting information about them, the FTC said, perhaps in a browser setting.
by Jim Puzzanghera Los Angeles Times Dec. 2, 2010 12:00 AM
FTC backs Web-user privacy option
