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"I heard a rumor that I hope isn't true. Specifically, I heard that opting out of behavioral profiling may not stop advertising companies from tracking you as you travel across the Web. Rather, according to the rumor, in many cases you merely opt out of seeing the tailored ads your web history might otherwise trigger. The ability to opt out of behavioral profiling essentially underpins the argument for self-regulation by the industry. The idea is that (1) people like tailored ads and (2) those that worry about the practice, for instance, from a privacy perspective, can opt out of it. Setting aside the apparent frailty of cookie-based opt out (when you delete your cookies, you delete your opt out as well) and the availability of other means to track users (like flash cookies), this seems pretty straightforward and convincing. But what does "opting out" mean, exactly? A close look at the Network Advertising Initiative website, which offers an opt out tool on behalf of most major online advertisers, turns up no guarantee that opting out will stop a company from logging where a user has traveled."

OPT-OUT becomes untenable when users have to visit 40 - 50 or more sites to do it.

The online advertising industry and U.S. policy makers need to give online users more control over the collection of personal data and surfing habits beyond the traditional opt-out approach, some privacy advocates said Wednesday. Dozens of online ad networks allow users to opt out of being tracked as a way to deliver behavioral advertising, and in most cases, the opt-out is stored in a cookie that goes away every time the users clear their browser cookies, privacy advocates said during a discussion of online advertising at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference in Washington, D.C. Some advertisers require that people opt out of targeted advertising every month, and some advertisers make the opt-out link difficult to find, said Christopher Soghoian, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Some opt-out mechanisms aren't even functional, he said. Soghoian, while creating a single opt-out mechanism for the Firefox browser, found more than 40 advertising networks, he said. "How can we expect consumers to visit 40 or 50 different online advertisers, opt out, then revisit these sites every six months or every year, and then, when they delete their cookies, go back again?" he asked.

There are many websites that sell or provide for free, personal information about individuals. This information is gathered from many sources including white pages listings (directory assistance), publicly-available sources and public records. * Data vendors that offer an opt out policy * Data vendors that do not offer an opt out policy Directory Listings: To prevent the cross-referencing of your address with your phone number, you can choose to not have your information available in the phone book or through directory assistance. If your number is "unlisted," your name, address and phone number will not be printed in the phone book, but the information is available through both directory assistance and reverse directory assistance. If your number is "unpublished," your information will not be printed in the phone book and is not available through directory assistance or reverse directory assistance. Or you can list your name and phone number, but not your address. Telephone companies usually charge a monthly fee to be unlisted or unpublished. Public Records: Please note that public records are often that--public. Web sites that provided personal information gathered from various sources are not required to offer a way to have that information removed or suppressed, though many will as a courtesy. The table below notes many of the more common online providers of public and non-public information that do offer an opt out mechanism. The opt out notes below usually only apply to non-public information. Not all web sites that sell personal information allow individuals to have their information removed or suppressed. Check the privacy policy of the site to see if they offer an opt-out mechanism. If one is provided, ask the online data broker for clarification on whether opting out also applies to public records information they may maintain. Some online data vendors will request information from you (such as your Social Security number or date of birth) to proce

Now that behavioral targeting has become more pervasive (and more effective), it is being talked about not only by publishers and advertisers, but also by privacy advocates -- organizations like the NAI and IAB and, in Washington, the FTC. At issue is if BT players are doing enough to disclosure to consumers how BT works and offering them the opportunity to opt out of being tracked by BT vendors and publishers. There has been much discussion about how to regulate behavioral marketers; but no solution that satisfies everyone. The BT industry so far has contended that website privacy policies are sufficient disclosure since many of them contain links to opts out opportunities like the NAI site. Google and Bluekai have announced 'preference pages' or registries that allow Web users to say what type of BT they are interested in receiving. But, the other, more common option is to put that information in the Privacy Policy of the site. But the problem with that is that no matter where disclosures are placed on the service provider's site, most people won't ever see them. How will a customer visiting Retail SiteX know that Company Y is going to use their browsing behavior to later display relevant ads to them as they surf the Web on Network Z? The average customer won't. The only way a customer will know what forms of BT advertisers are using is if the advertisers themselves tell them. I think that it's time for advertisers to step up in this privacy debate. Thus far the pressure for disclosure has been placed on networks, behavioral marketing providers and publishers. The key players in those industries have done a good job of becoming more transparent (though there is still work ahead of us), while advertisers haven't been asked to do anything. Advertisers are clearly benefiting from behavioral marketing, and its time they disclosed what type of behavioral marketing they participate in, and allow customers to opt-out. How they do this is open for discussion: Tag each

Wikipedia told the controversial U.K. advertising firm Phorm on Thursday not to spy on Wikipedia's users, saying the company's plan to monitor what sites people visit on the net invaded people's privacy. Wikipedia now joins Amazon.co.uk in opting out of the Big-Brother-esque marketing scheme and creating the possibility of a mass opt-out by the net's largest websites. Phorm wants to pay ISPs -- such as British Telecom -- to let it build marketing profiles of its subscribers by installing boxes inside the ISP that monitor every url users visit and every search they run. Using those profiles, Phorm can charge advertisers high rates to serve targeted ads. But in an email sent Thursday, Wikimedia.org told Phorm not to record anything about urls from domains it controls, ranging from Wikiquotes to Wikipedia -- one of the most popular sites on the net. Phorm operates an opt-out system for sites and ISP customers, but it would be virtually impossible to verify if the company actually complied with such requests. "The Wikimedia Foundation requests that our web sites including Wikipedia.org and all related domains be excluded from scanning by the Phorm / BT Webwise system, as we consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy," the email read, according to a Wikimedia blog post.

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Yahoo Tuesday announced that has developed a feature that will allow users to opt out of behavioral targeting on mobile devices. "We believe the mobile experience should offer the same privacy protections consumers expect to find on the PC," Yahoo said in a blog post announcing the feature. "Furthermore, management of privacy protections should be available via any mobile device, whether that's an iPhone or a Blackberry." Many companies that track people's Web activity on PCs and send them ads notify users about the practice and allow them to opt out. But it's still unusual for behavioral targeting companies in the mobile space to let people opt out. At least a dozen companies say they offer some form of mobile behavioral targeting. But only two appear to allow users to opt out, according to Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the think tank Future of Privacy Forum.

Top House and Senate Democrats are working on legislation that would prevent online marketers from sharing Web-surfing information unless Internet users allowed them to. That's according to House Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D.-Va.), who told Multichannel News that such a bill was in the works and was one of his top legislative priorities. The issue of online behavioral marketing has gained traction recently, spurred by privacy concerns and by media companies' need to find new ways for advertisers to reach aggregated audiences at a time of fragmented viewing and multiplying delivery platforms. Boucher's predecessor atop the committee, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), held a hearing last fall on the issue and helped quash a test by ad-tracking company NebuAd and cable operator Charter Communications. In an interview, Boucher said he was teaming with Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), ranking member of his subcommittee, and Joe Barton (R-Texas), ranking full committee member, on a bill that would apply "across the board" to behavioral advertising and data collection by Web sites. "The goal would be to give the Internet user a sense that information about him that is collected by Web sites is well understood by the user, so he has an opportunity to know what is collected," Boucher said. "He would then have an opportunity to act in a way that prevents that Web site using that information to market him personally, and an even broader opportunity to prevent the transfer of that information about him to third parties." Boucher envisions a combination of opt-in and opt-out requirements. "Opt-in would apply where the information is conveyed to third parties," he said, while "opt out would apply where the Web site that collects the information is using that information directly to market the customers from whom it is collected." Center for Digital Democracy executive director Jeff Chester was please

A Harvard University fellow has developed a browser extension that stops advertising networks from tracking a person's surfing habits, such as search queries and content they view on the Web. The extension, called Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO), enables its users to opt out of 27 advertising networks that are employing behavioral advertising systems, wrote Christopher Soghoian, who developed it, on his Web site. Soghoian, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, modified a browser extension Google released under an Apache 2 open-source license. Google's opt-out plugin for Internet Explorer and Firefox blocks cookies delivered by its Doubleclick advertising network. A cookie is a small data file stored in a browser that can track a variety of information, such as Web sites visited and search queries, and transmit that information back to the entity that placed the cookie in the browser. Google's opt-out plugin comes as the company announced plans last week to target advertisements based on the sites people visit. Targeted advertising is seen as a way for advertisers to more precisely find potential customers as well as for Web site publishers to charge higher advertising rates. But the behavioral advertising technologies have raised concern over how consumers get enrolled in the programs, what data is being tracked and how the data is protected.

Concerned that Google knows too much about you? The company provides many ways to protect your privacy online -- you just need to find them. Here are six good ones. 1. Know your privacy rights: Use the Google Privacy Center. This site includes all of Google's privacy policies, as well as privacy best practices for each of its products and services. Although the "legalese" of privacy policies can be difficult to understand, Google's Privacy Channel offers a library of short YouTube videos with practical tips on protecting your data when using Google products and services. Try the "Google Search Privacy" and "Google Privacy Tips" series. 2. Protect your content on the services you use. Some content that Google stores for you, such as photos uploaded in Picasa Web Albums, are public by default. You can protect your privacy when you upload photos by choosing the appropriate checkbox. Choices include "unlisted" (accessible only if you have the Web link, and not indexed by Web search engines) or private (viewable only by named users who must sign in). Another example: You can take a Google Chat "off the record" if you don't want the instant messaging transcript stored. In contrast, Google Latitude, which tracks your whereabouts by way of GPS-enabled cell phones, does not share your location data by default. You must authorize others to see it. Latitude stores your last known location, but not your history. 3. Turn off the suggestion feature in the Chrome browser. By default, Chrome retains a history of Web sites you've visited -- and the full text of those pages -- so it can try to guess which Web address you want as you type in the "Omnibox." You can turn the feature off by going to "Under the Hood" under Options and unchecking the "Use a suggestion service" box. You can also select other privacy options, including surfing in Chrome's "incognito" mode. 4. Turn off Web History. You may have turned on the Web History option, also called Personalized Search, when yo

Amazon has opted out of Phorm's controversial targeted advertising technology, delivering a serious blow to the UK-listed company which has already prompted a European commission legal action against the British government. Phorm's technology, which is yet to be launched in the UK, allows ISPs to track their customers' activity on the internet in order to target adverts on pages they subsequently visit. Amazon's absence from Phorm's Webwise system deprives the company of the second most visited destination, after eBay.co.uk, among shopping and classified websites in the UK, according to data from Hitwise. It means Phorm will not have access to crucial information about what Amazon users are interested in. Last month the Open Rights Group, privacy campaigners, sent a letter to nine of the internet's biggest names, including Amazon, Google, Bebo, Facebook and Yahoo, asking them to opt out of Phorm's technology "to protect your users' privacy". Google and Bebo are actively considering whether to opt out and a spokesman for Amazon said the company has now removed all its domain names - including Amazon.com - from Webwise. A spokesman for Phorm said the company does not comment on individual cases but the it is understood to be planning a meeting with Amazon's management to explain the benefits of the Webwise system.

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Google will unveil new privacy measures today that will give consumers more control over behavioral targeting. Now, when Google serves banner ads on outside publishers' sites, the ads will include links that provide more information explaining why they were served. Clicking through will lead to details about the company's behavioral advertising program, which categorizes consumers as interested in particular types of goods or services based on the sites they visited. The program is only in beta for now, but once Google signs up publishers, consumers will be able to view the categories they have been placed in--such as "interested in travel"--and also tell Google to remove them from whatever buckets they wish. Consumers also will be able to opt out of the program permanently via a browser plug-in. Or, if people want to receive ads for certain types of products, they can edit their profiles to reflect that--in effect, opting in to particular types of ads. Google's new measures come at a time when online behavioral targeting is facing increased scrutiny. Last month, two Federal Trade Commissioners warned that the online advertising industry could face new laws if it didn't take steps to self-regulate on privacy issues. Recently, Google rival Yahoo announced enhancements to its privacy policies. Among other changes, Yahoo said it would allow consumers to opt out of behavioral targeting on its own site. Google's move drew praise from the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Mike Zaneis, vice president for public policy. "It's really a consumer empowerment tool, which is great," he said. "It's one more example of how industry is competing on the privacy issue, to the benefit of consumers--and also to the benefit of businesses."

With mounting concerns over online privacy and information gathering by search engines, Google has come up with a solution, Opt-out village, a 22-acre remote mountain enclave for those obsessed with privacy. According to trusted news network, ONN, access to the new privacy feature is simple. Just click the opt-out button on the Google home page. Within minutes, a van will arrive to sweep you away to Opt-Out Village nestled in the Pacific NorthWest. A team of privacy experts will eliminate your personal identifiers and guarantee that your name and address will not appear on Google local searches.

A data protection group has warned that opting out of Phorm will not prevent the technology from processing data that users enter through web site search portals. Companies such as Amazon, Wikipedia and LiveJournal have taken the decision to block the controversial advertising technology from scanning their sites because of the privacy implications. However, Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock has since admitted that, even if web sites opt out of the programme, ISPs supporting Phorm will still be able to profile users visiting those sites. "This is because Phorm can scan search requests entered in those sites, even if it cannot detect the web site pages users are viewing," Killock said. "For example, even if Google opts out of Webwise, when a user types in a Google query and they are using BT, it will still go through Phorm before it reaches BT." Killock added that Phorm does not gain permission from either senders or receivers of the information before it processes the data. Phorm uses browsing information to serve accurately targeted advertisements, and is soon to be rolled out under the Webwise brand by internet service providers BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. However, as the time for deployment nears, the controversy surrounding the technology only seems to be increasing.

The debate on Internet privacy has begun in Congress. I had a chance to sit down recently with Representative Rick Boucher, the long-serving Virginia Democrat, who has just replaced Ed Markey, the Democrat from Massachusetts, as the chairman of the House Subcommittee looking after telecommunications, technology and the Internet. Mr. Boucher is widely regarded as one of the most technologically savvy members of Congress. As he ticked off his top priorities for his panel, most involved the pressing demands of telecommunications regulation. There is a law governing how local TV stations are carried on satellite broadcasters that needs to be renewed. There is the Universal Service Fund, which takes money from most telephone customers to pay for rural service to be improved. And there is the conversion to digital television and the investments in rural broadband to be supervised. But high on his list is a topic that is very much under his discretion: passing a bill to regulate the privacy of Internet users. "Internet users should be able to know what information is collected about them and have the opportunity to opt out," he said. While he hasn't written the bill yet, Mr. Boucher said that he, working with Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is the ranking minority member on the subcommittee, wants to require Web sites to disclose how they collect and use data, and give users the option to opt out of any data collection. That's not a big change from what happens now, at least on most big sites.

Some consumers say they like the way Internet retailers will suggest new purchases to them based on what they've bought previously. Others feel creeped out when a banner ad seems to know a bit too much about their Web surfing habits. It's called behavioral advertising, and it's central to the business success of all manner of Internet commerce, from bookstores to newspapers. The practice needs regulation, says Rep. Rick Boucher , the Virginia Democrat who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. Boucher says legislation to protect consumer privacy online will spur people to surf more. But Internet advertising companies are not happy about regulation, especially because Boucher's plan would require, in some cases, that consumers agree in advance before their surfing habits could be tracked. Such an approach "would really be a sea change in the U.S. regulatory framework," says Mike Zaneis, vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Virtually all consumer protection laws, he says, permit people to opt out of solicitation, for instance, with a "do not call" registry. For the Internet, Congress has done almost nothing. "To suddenly move toward a draconian opt-in standard," he says, "would really be damaging not just to businesses but consumers." Zaneis, whose group includes such news heavyweights as the New York Times Co. and Conde Nast Publications, says now is not the time to upend Internet companies' business models, right when the economy is in the tank and print advertising is drying up. He argues further that new Web browsers make the issue moot by giving consumers the ability to easily block the electronic "cookies" that track their online movements. The issue promises to be a lobbying extravaganza. Last year, when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was developing self-regulatory guidelines for Web companies engaging in behavioral advertising, it

Do you know where your friends are? If not, Google wants to help you find them. Today, Google introduced Latitude, a new opt-in feature that lets smartphone and laptop users share their location with friends and allows those friends to share their locations in return. Although not pinpoint accurate, Latitude can display your general location based on information from GPS satellites and cell towers. Latitude works on both mobile devices and personal computers. What Latitude can do Once you and your friends have opted in to Latitude, you can see your friends' Google icon displayed on Google Maps. Clicking on their icon allows you to call, email or IM them, and you can even use the directions feature on Google Maps to help you get to their location. Google says Latitude works in 27 countries and with many mobile platforms including iGoogle with your computer. The list of compatible phones are: *Android-powered devices, such as the T-Mobile G1 *iPhone and iPod touch devices (coming soon) *most color BlackBerry devices *most Windows Mobile 5.0+ devices *most Symbian S60 devices (Nokia smartphones) *many Java-enabled (J2ME) mobile phones, such as Sony Ericsson devices (coming soon)

Educating consumers about what behavioral targeting is and is not up to, deep within the cookies of their browser, seems to be a bit like alternative energy development. Pretty much everyone says the industry should be doing more about it, and yet it is hard to see where and with whom it starts. Most online materials related to BT are pitched to one end of the value chain, marketers. It's not clear to me that most of the companies in this space are even comfortable talking directly to consumers, let alone taking the time to develop an accessible language to describe their process. Specific Media controls the BehavioralTargeting.com domain and uses it to educate marketers about its methods. Even the Wikipedia entry for this field is really an explanation for advertisers. This is understandable, since most people who are familiar with the term likely come from the industry. But it seems to me the industry misses an opportunity to practice more often, and in more places, what it knows ultimately needs to be done. You guys need to find better, clearer, simpler ways to explain what it is you are doing in our browsers -- and why you are doing it. And what are the real benefits and risks a consumer incurs by tacitly agreeing to your presence? Isn't every possible point of contact with a suspicious consumer a teachable moment? In an earlier post, I recounted how I struck some retargeting gold when FetchBack tagged and remarketed me during my travels online. An opt-out option is clearly available at the front page of the FetchBack site. Unfortunately, from there you either opt-out (kick over to the Network Advertising Initiative site) or click into a long scrolling privacy policy that doesn't actually get around to explaining retargeting until a few screens down.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo support self-regulation in the UK AOL, Google, Microsoft, NebuAd, Phorm, and Yahoo promise to behave. All of these companies - along with a few others - have volunteered to honor the Internet Advertising Bureau's just-announced set of Good Practice Principles. So on to the guts of the agreement. First, companies are supposed to tell users whenever they're collecting data for the sake of behavioral advertising. They're also expected to make sure users understand what the procedure entails. Then comes the key part: users should get the chance to opt out of the collection process. Ad companies are probably hoping that users will either be too lazy to take action or will actually prefer better-targeted ads. If so, the companies will continue to make money and improve their public image. But since privacy advocates may still complain that data collection isn't an opt-in matter, the issue isn't likely to go away. Mark Howe, the country sales director of Google UK, sidestepped the mess, simply stating, "Google believes in two core principles of transparency and choice when it comes to user privacy. That is why we are supportive of these new, self-regulatory principles for online advertising which will enable consumers to increase their understanding of their web surfing options." IAB described the Principles as "the UK's first self-regulatory guidelines to set good practice for companies that collect and use data for online behavioural advertising purposes." The Principles have been approved by the Information Commissioner's Office, which reports directly to Parliament.

Behavioral targeting is not bad as a concept but advertisers would have the public opt-in by default without knowing what is being collected and what it is being used for. On the other hand not many in the public seem very concerned about this subject.

The Internet contributes about US$300 billion a year to the U.S. economy, and U.S. lawmakers should be careful about tinkering with the advertising-supported Internet content model in the name of privacy, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said. An IAB-commissioned study by two Harvard University professors, released Wednesday, found that 1.2 million U.S. residents are directly employed in Internet-related jobs, and another 1.9 million U.S. jobs support those Internet workers. IAB released the study Wednesday, as 30 publishers of small Web sites converged on Washington, D.C., to urge U.S. lawmakers to avoid passing legislation that would harm their ad-supported business models. Chief among those publishers' concern was talk in the U.S. Congress about requiring Web sites to gain opt-in permission from users before tracking their Web habits as a way to deliver personalized advertising to them. Many users wouldn't give the permission, and without offering targeted advertising, many small Web sites could fold, some small publishers said. Small Web publishers and sellers "are the face of small business" in the U.S. in recent years, said Susan Martin, publisher of Ikeafans.com, a home improvement site.

Legislation aimed at protecting the privacy rights of car owners is drawing objections from auto manufacturers and Progressive Insurance, which hopes to introduce a program in Washington state that charges drivers based partly on how and when they drive.\n\nThe American Civil Liberties Union of Washington is pushing for the legislation, which would require automakers and other companies to inform car owners of the presence of devices that record information about their driving habits.\n\nThat includes event data recorders, or black boxes, installed on most newer cars, as well as electronic equipment such as GPS devices and OnStar, the wireless subscription service from General Motors.\n\nIn addition to requiring notification, a bill sponsored by state Sen. Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent, would clarify that vehicle owners are the owners of the data. With a few exceptions, a court order or the owner's permission would be required in order for a third party to obtain it.\n\nCarrie Tellefson, a lobbyist for Progressive Insurance, testified last week at a House Transportation Committee hearing that Substitute Senate Bill 5574 would prevent the insurance company from introducing its pioneering MyRate insurance program into Washington.\n\nProgressive Insurance first tested the idea of usage-based insurance in 1999. The company introduced the current plan, called MyRate, in 2004 and now offers it in nine states, including Oregon.\n\nCustomers who agree to opt into the program plug a device into their car's onboard diagnostic system, usually somewhere under the dashboard near the steering column. The device records information about how, when, and how much the car is driven, and wirelessly transmits the data back to Progressive's servers.\n\nCustomers are either rewarded with a discount or penalized with a higher rate depending on the information collected.\n\nThe discount can be as much as 30 percent, and the surcharge up to 9 percent.\n\nCustomers can go online and look at perso