Online Privacy

Behavioral Advertising: What Internet Consumers Need to Know about Their Privacy

Behavioral advertising is “the tracking of a consumer’s activities online, including the searches the consumer has conducted, the Web pages visited, and the content viewed in order to deliver advertising targeted to the individual consumer’s interests,” as defined by the Federal Trade Commission.

What’s a Cookie?

• Behavioral advertising allows advertising networks to deliver customized ads to consumers based on their internet activity, which is tracked using small files called “cookies.”
• Cookies identify a user’s specific Web browser, tracking which Web sites have been visited.
• Cookies are attached to a user’s hard drive and record the specific IP address (your computer’s unique online signature) in an ad server.
• By analyzing the information cookies provide, advertisers can more strategically place ads in a user’s online path.

• Some cookies make using the Internet easier for users. For instance, cookies allow a Web site to remember a user’s username and password each time a site is revisited.

Importance of Privacy

• Privacy and consumer protections are a major concern because behavioral advertising tactics are largely undetectable by consumers.
• Because consumers are often unaware that they are being tracked, they have not given their permission to be tracked.
• Consumers are unable to know how or who is using their information, which often includes knowing which Web sites a user has visited, which links have been clicked on, which articles have been read, which products have been bought.
• Sometimes advertising networks collect information about a user’s online activity and then pass the information to other companies who use the information to generate customized, online advertising.

• Advertisers could match a user’s IP address to other personal information collected by their partner Web sites, including email address, phone number and home address without the user’s knowledge.

Protecting Online Consumers

• Consumers should be allowed to actively “opt in” to behavioral advertising programs rather than be enrolled automatically because they failed to “opt out.”
• Upfront, consumers should know who is using their information, what information is being logged, the purpose for collecting their information, and what security measures are in place to protect their information.

• Without explicit permission, behavioral advertising activities using a user’s personal information and online activities should be prohibited.