Will A "Do Not Track" List Materialize?
Today it was widely reported that several privacy groups were banding together to demand the creation of a "Do Not Track" list, similar to the FTC's "Do Not Call" list.
The groups include the Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Activism, Public Information Research, Privacy Journal, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Here's an interesting factoid from the article:
"Online ad revenue is forecast to more than double to $44 billion in 2011 from $17 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer.com."
This privacy coalition wants consumers notified when their web surfing is tracked, and they want the privacy policies more prominent and written in a way that is easier to understand than most privacy policies are now written.
The spirit and intent of this idea is certainly noble and good. Technologically, without knowing more details, it should be very easy and do-able for organizations to implement.
I don't like having so much information collected while I'm online, and most people I know don't like it either.
If there can be an implementable way to create such a "Do not Track" list and actually enforce it, that would be great! The spammers and other shady tracking entities would not observe such a list, though, so hopefully some baseline numbers can be created prior to the implementation to compare with the after implementation numbers to determine how effective such a law is in practice. Because of the very wide range of technologies involved it will be a much more complex task to implement such a centralized list compared to the "Do Not Call" list.
Does your organization do such website tracking? If so, be aware of this potential new law. You'll want to be involved with how to implement it successfully and effectively if it is enacted.
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