Who’s Watching Google Watch You? Web Publishers Face Congress Today.
by Peter Kafka
Posted on June 18, 2009 at 6:48 AM PT
Here’s a nice way to visualize the Internet privacy debate, circa 2009: Google’s assessment of what I’m interested in, at least when it comes to Web browsing (click to enlarge):
That listing comes from Google’s “Ad Preferences” management page, and I think it’s pretty good litmus test for the Web privacy debate. The advertising business will argue that this represents a good-faith effort by Google to figure out what kind of marketing messages I’ll be interested in and will note the button allowing me to opt out of tracking altogether. Privacy advocates will argue that this is creepy and note that 99.99 percent of Google users will never see this page to begin with.
As for me? I’m dismayed to see how boring I am.
If this sort of debate interests you–and if you’re in any way involved in a Web-based advertising business, it should–you’ll want to keep tabs on today’s Congressional hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectations,” which starts at 10 am Eastern time.
Overseeing the proceedings: Rick Boucher, a Democratic congressman from Virginia, who has already said he wants to regulate behavioral ads rather than allowing the industry to oversee itself. On hand to tell him why he’s wrong will be reps from Facebook, Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).
I’m assuming the event is Webcast but can’t find a link. If you can, please let us know in comments below.
Comments
Ah, lucky me. I get the comment that I don’t allow cookies and I would have to allow cookies for Ad Preferences. So I guess I will stay really boring and not allow cookies
Posted by carol waller at June 18th, 2009 at 7:11 am