New legislation, if passed in US congress next month, could drastically change how we use the Internet. The bill, if enacted, would prevent websites from sharing information with unrelated third parties.
The bill is creating a stir because the information sharing that it aims to protect is the type of data collection that allows large-scale ad targeting and accounts for billions of dollars in ad sales.
The proposed law could drastically change how information can be collected through browsers’ cookies, as well as having an impact on the billions of dollars spent every year through display advertising.
The key elements of the new legislation are that every website will have to disclose every piece of information that it collects from each visitor, along with how that information will be used by the site that collects it. All this information would have to be provided in an easy to access privacy policy.
As it stands today, when users visit a webpage, the content they view and the ads they click on are recorded, and the data is stored to be used to target them in future ads. The new bill would disallow this information from being automatically shared with unrelated third parties without a consumer’s permission upfront.
Here’s what publishers should really be worried about: if this law comes to fruition, the ability to serve ads that collect and share information without a user’s upfront permission could be completely taken away. With so many websites basing their income on these ad sales, this law could cause a huge furor in the online publishing community.
Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan, head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s privacy committee had this to say in June, in defense of the proposed legislation: “Congress’ position is that consumers are not appropriately aware of what is being done on their machines, and the use of cookies delivered by a third party is something consumers have not been appropriately informed of.”
Morgan pointed out that highly sensitive information from bank account information to credit card balances can currently be collected online without the user having any idea.
However, industry trade groups have responded by proposing consumers be allowed to simply opt out of the information gathering – something that has really already been in place for years (but most people are simply unaware of the practice, or are lacking in sufficient information as to what is happening with the information they part with on what they deem to be secure web pages). However, those on the side of the bill say that the steps proposed by the industry trade groups simply don’t go far enough. It is possible for users to delete their cookies, but the fact is that most people don’t.
Kaila Krayewski is a freelance journalist with a passion for all things internet. Having worked for nearly two years as the public relations manager for an internation search engine optimization company, and publishing hundreds of articles (how-to, informational, and otherwise) on SEO, she knows a thing or two about the field. Furthermore, having just started up her own website blondetraveler.com, she is doing her best to keep one step ahead of the search engines in order to keep the traffic flowing.
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