Privacy Advocates Call FTC Ad-Tracking Regulations ‘Only A Start’
Privacy advocates had some muted praise for the Federal Trade Commission’s call for a “Do Not Track” tool to be applied as a persistent setting on consumers’ browsers, but felt that the recommendations still do not go far enough.
In what seems like a major blow to the online ad industry, which has fought for years to keep the current self-policing rules in place, the FTC said that companies’ efforts to address privacy through self-regulation “have been too slow, and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.” For the moment, though, the rules don't seem binding and will depend on Congress, which will continue its hearings on the matter tomorrow, to decide whether to demand more controls over ad targeting. In a conference call organized by privacy groups including the Center for Digital Democracy have joined with two other consumer advocates, U.S. PIRG, and the World Privacy Forum, advocates described themselves as pleased that the FTC is beginning to take a more aggressive stance on the hidden tools that track users’ online usage and targets them with ads. But the “do not track” button the FTC hopes will come into play doesn't seem enforceable just yet. It will take Congress, which is currently in a lame duck session and unlikely to enact anything sweeping, to put teeth behind the recommendations that a tracking blocker be placed on websites and browsers.