The Privacy Tug of War: Advertisers vs. Consumers Presented by Group F

Overview In today’s world, given the invasion of the internet, Marketers and data companies can find so much information concerning you. This information can include how much you earn, credit score, home ownership, the car you drive, your online behavior such as the music you listen to. In the past, offline marketers knew much more personal information about you than online companies did. But now it’s vice versa. Most search engines know more than you think they know!!!

Technologies used to invade privacy Some of the technologies used to invade privacy are as follows:  Google: Google has become one of the largest tracker on the internet. Through it’s services such as Gmail, Google sites, Google health and other applications, Google is able to take behavioral targeting to another level. For example if you send an to your doctor using Gmail about a stomach acid problem, you will be shown ads for stomach acid products.

Continued…  Experian: Experian links websites to its database and provides the names and addresses of visitors to the sites in real time.  Acxiom: This combines offline and online purchasing and behavioral data into one central database. Acxiom has a service called Relevance-X which draws on the database collected to determine which online ads to show.

Continued…  MySpace developed a hyper Targeting ad program, which scours user profiles for interests and then delivers related ads.  Facebook on the other hand in 2007 introduced Beacon, an advertising system that broadcast member’s activities on other web sites to their friends on Facebook. This was later changed due to resistant from Facebook members and privacy groups.

Marketers intrusion arguments  Internet is not free “Expect charges for even minimal service”  Make efficiency and effectiveness “the more advertisers know about you, the more they can customize and personalized the advertising to you” Do you accept the trade off between privacy invasion and “free” Web content?

How consumers feel about giving up their personal information in exchange for “free” web content - Overall, consumers want the content but would like to keep their privacy. - Some studies show that teenagers and young adults don’t really care.

So what can they do to protect themselves? P3P – provided them some choice in privacy by making them aware of the Web sites’ privacy policies. (Hasn’t been really successful because they still need the info they are seeking, so they tend to provide their info anyway) AOL’s, Do Not Track – links consumers directly to opt-out lists that are offered by the large advertising networks. Google – for Adsense partner sites, DoubleClick ad servicing, and certain Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie, consumers are able to opt out. (But, consumers have to know enough to want to go the page to opt out) Network Advertising Initiative – created a tool where you can opt out of several third-party ad servers and networks simultaneously. Web Browsers – pop-up blockers and image blockers. Symantec and other software makers – are including cookie blockers and anti-spyware software in their suite packages.

Privacy protection initiatives  Public pressure  Legislation Transparency and accountability improvement Control, choice, security and data retention rules  Self Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising  Do not track list

Questions?