Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We agree. Opting out can range from the not-too-difficult (the FTC’s Do Not Call list is a fairly simple opt out) to the challenging (the National Advertising Initiative opt out can be tricky). Our hope is that this list will clarify which opt out does what, and how to go about opting out.
Current online privacy debates focus on respecting the privacy interests of Internet users while accommodating business needs. Formal and informal proposals for improving consumer privacy offer different ideas for privacy regulation and privacy self-regulation, sometimes called codes of conduct. [1] Some in the Internet industry continue to advance or support ideas for privacy self- regulation. Many of these same players proposed and implemented privacy self-regulatory schemes that started in the late 1990s.
This section offers a historical review of privacy self-regulation that occurred in the years just before and just after 2000. For a variety of reasons, it is not necessarily fully comprehensive. Some self-regulatory efforts may have disappeared without a trace. Activities within existing trade associations are difficult or impossible to assess from evidence available to those outside the associations. However, this discussion captures the leading organizations of the time. [13]
This section reviews several other privacy self-regulatory activities that share some characteristics with the industry self-regulatory programs discussed above, but these activities differ in various ways. The most noticeable differences are the role of the government in the programs. The Department of Commerce is involved in the Safe Harbor Framework, and the Federal Trade Commission is involved in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The self-regulatory efforts in this category include projects that have many components, including input from government, industry, academia, and civil society.
Is there any reason to think that privacy self-regulation will work today when it did not work in the past? Privacy self-regulation done in the same way that it has been done in the past, without sufficient consumer participation, and with the same goals of simply evading real regulation and effective privacy controls will continue to fail.
Some of the advertising that is done online comes with hooks. Using a variety of technologies, some largely unseen, online advertisers can track online activities, sometimes in profound ways that consumers are not expecting. Not all online advertising has "hooks" that are problematic or that raise privacy challenges. But a type of advertising called "behaviorally targeted advertising" often does. Behavioral advertising has two key components: tracking and targeting.
The World Privacy Forum submits these comments to the European Advertising Standards Alliance on its Best Practice Recommendation on Online Behavioural Advertising.
Comments on EASA --The World Privacy Forum submitted comments today on the European Advertising Standards Alliance's Best Practice Recommendation on Online Behavioural Advertising. Our comments focus upon three key areas: First, the EASA recommendation fails to recognize the protection of consumer privacy in Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) as a key policy goal. Second, the recommendation's protections are narrow, creating illusory protections for user privacy, whether or not they opt out of OBA. Finally, we critique the oversight and compliance mechanisms, which are not likely to foster consumer confidence nor police the industry. Drawing upon the WPF's 2007 report, The NAI: Failing at Consumer Protection and at Self-Regulation, the comments argue that EASA's approach suffers from the same weaknesses as self-regulatory approaches deployed in the United States, and that European lawmakers should not replicate the failed American approach. Law students from the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic helped draft the comments as part of an ongoing project on consumer privacy and OBA.
Opt-out and how-to -- The popular WPF Top Ten Opt Out List has been newly updated. We have added a new section to our list with step by step details on how to opt out of RapLeaf. We encourage consumers to view any of their profiles that exist at RapLeaf and to opt out of RapLeaf permanently. We have also updated the phone numbers and other information on the rest of our opt out list. To see more, visit our Opt Out List.
This report is an in-depth analysis of the history and current operations of the National Advertising Initiative (NAI) self-regulatory agreement.
Roadmap: The National Advertising Initiative – Failing at Consumer Protection and at Self-Regulation: Difficulties with the NAI When people sit at their computers and browse for new car information or to learn about the latest treatment for diabetes, when people walk down the street reading stock quotes on their mobile phones, and when people text a response for more information based on a television commercial they saw, their actions speak louder than words. A new realm of consumer tracking has grown up to translate these activities into advertisements. This kind of advertising is behaviorally targeted advertising. Behaviorally targeted advertising is as controversial as it is lucrative.
In 1999, when online advertising was still a fresh segment of the advertising sector, widespread concerns arose about the ways that consumers could be tracked and targeted online for advertising purposes. The Federal Trade Commission held a workshop on online profiling in November 1999. [6] The concerns of the day were distilled in a FTC report to Congress in June 2000, Online Profiling: A Report to Congress. In that report, the FTC found that online profiling presented privacy problems for consumers. The FTC found that online profiling was primarily accomplished through banner ads, cookies, and web bugs, also called web beacons. [7] The Commission also concluded that online profiling was largely invisible to consumers:
The essential activity of the NAI is to define terms, discuss a handful of abbreviated consumer rights, which the NAI calls its “principles,” and to set up a structure of “opt-out cookies.”
Although it is possible to identify many aspects of the NAI that are broken, this report focuses on four areas in particular: 1) the effectiveness of the NAI opt-out cookie as the primary tool for stopping tracking; 2) the applicability of the NAI to types of tracking that extend beyond the traditional cookie and to business models not expressly covered by the NAI; 3) the constantly shifting membership of the NAI; and 4) auditing and enforcement of the NAI.
Report | Internet privacy | NAI -- The World Privacy Forum published a new report today, The Network Advertising Initiative: Failing at Consumer Protection and at Self-Regulation. The report is an in-depth analysis of the history and current operations of the National Advertising Initiative (NAI) self-regulatory agreement. The NAI was created to protect consumers' online privacy in the behavioral advertising arena. The report finds that the NAI has failed. The report discusses the failure of the NAI opt-out cookie, the uses of persistent consumer tracking technologies that go beyond cookies, such as Flash cookies, browser cache cookies, XML super cookies, and other issues. The report also discusses the practice of re-setting cookies after cookie deletion. The report gathers the details of the difficult membership history of the NAI, as well as the enforcement history of TRUSTe regarding NAI.
Consensus document | Consumer rights and protections -- Nine privacy and consumer groups, including the World Privacy Forum, unveiled a consensus document outlining key consumer rights and protections in the behavioral advertising sector. The document is directed toward the Federal Trade Commission, and urges the FTC to take proactive steps to adequately protect consumers as online and other forms of behavioral tracking and targeting become more ubiquitous. The consensus document was filed with the Secretary of the FTC and its commissioners. Behavioral advertising is the focus of the FTC's eHavioral Advertising Town Hall meeting taking place November 1-2 in Washington, D.C. The network advertising sector has a self-regulatory plan, the Network Advertising Initiative, in place, and has had this plan in place since 2000. The consensus document addresses the many areas where the NAI plan has failedto protect consumers.
Ten privacy and consumer groups, including the World Privacy Forum, unveiled a consensus document outlining key consumer rights and protections in the behavioral advertising sector. The document is directed toward the Federal Trade Commission, and urges the FTC to take proactive steps to adequately protect consumers as online and other forms of behavioral tracking and targeting become more ubiquitous. The consensus document was filed with the Secretary of the FTC and its commissioners. Behavioral advertising is the focus of the FTC's eHavioral Advertising Town Hall meeting taking place November 1-2 in Washington, D.C. The network advertising sector has a self-regulatory plan, the Network Advertising Initiative, in place, and has had this plan in place since 2000. The consensus document addresses the many areas where the NAI plan has failed to protect consumers.