Congress Questions How Web Sites Use Personal Data [NYT Bits Blog]
Chairman Henry Waxman's (D-CA) Energy and Commerce Committee is conducting an ongoing investigation into behavioral based advertising and how web sites use personal information to serve advertising. Two subcommittees held a joint hearing yesterday to find out about how Google, Facebook and Yahoo track user data on their customers. The hearing involved the members of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection and the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet.
Several members of Congress are concerned about users' privacy as the surf the Internet, having information about their surfing habits retained and used to determine the most relevant online advertising to display to them. Each of the companies that testified indicated that they have procedures that protect the privacy of their users and make efforts to inform users about the data that is retained about them. In their presentations to the subcommittees, all three argued for a level of self-regulation in this space.
Contrary to some of its detractors' opinions, behavioral advertising isn't all bad. Whether on the television or on the web, advertising generally helps to keep direct consumer costs for cable and broadband lower. And behavioral advertising provides great efficiencies to advertisers. It helps to filter out unwanted ads for TV viewers and web surfers by using computer intellegence to provide information on products that are more likely to be of interest to the consumer. Congress should carefully weigh the pros and cons of the concept. Protecting privacy is absolutely essential and should be reviewed by lawmakers and regulators but an outright prohibition of the practice, as suggested by some, is not the answer.
Comments