Are you one of those Facebook users who worries that your boss will see photos of what you did last weekend? Then you’ll like Facebook’s new privacy policy. But if you’re part of the large group of people who think that nothing is really private on the Web and that everyone should see everything you do online, then you’re really going to like Facebook’s new privacy policy.
Here comes the battle the online ad business has been dreading: Congress is drawing up a bill that would require users to sign up to let advertisers track their online behavior–and, if you believe online publishers, more or less destroy the online ad business.
How do we know that Google isn’t tracking the viewing records of people who watch YouTube videos at the official White House Web site? Because Google says so. The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that’s good enough for it, but Google’s answer may not satisfy everyone.
The man who wants to regulate Web advertising, or more precisely, Web advertising that knows who you are and what you do, puts Google, Yahoo and Facebook on the Congressional hotseat.
Want to watch Web clips of Barack Obama’s latest press conference (or backyard shoot-around) but worry that the Administration–or Google–is watching you? Worry no more!
Behavioral targeting–serving up ads to Internet users based on the sites they’ve already visited–has been standard practice on the Web for a couple of years, but not at Google. That changed this morning when the search giant rolled out “interest-based advertising.” Expect to hear from Congressional critics like Rick Boucher very soon.
What if you could deliver ads, electronically, to people based on where they lived, what they liked and what they might be interested in buying? Novel idea–for Web advertisers in the pre-Google world of the mid-1990s. But in TV land, where things move much, much more slowly, this is still a radical notion.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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