Protecting Privacy
Through Advertising
by Gregory
Rehmke
(from the Spring
2000 issue of The Free Speaker)
The privacy
resolution includes consumer information as an area
that the federal government should significantly
increase protection of privacy. One area where
consumer information is collected and where there
is growing concern is the internet. Internet
companies collect information about the people who
visit their web site. Some companies have begun
aggressively collecting information and combining
information collected via the internet with other
consumer databases.
Consider two ways
to protect internet users from advertisers who try
to read private Web-browsing data by "harvesting"
cookies. Cookies are placed on user's computers by
web sites to identify that user when he or she
returns. Cookies can store passwords and
preferences to make using the site more convenient
for customers.
But these cookies
can also gather personal and internet usage
information. One way to try to prevent improper use
of cookies would be to pass legislation banning
such information gathering.
A better approach
may be for government to do nothing. When a major
Internet marketing firm, DoubleClick, was caught
taking advantage of cookies, the objections of
privacy advocates coupled with advertising by
competitors forced DoubleClick to quickly shape up.
The bad publicity drove DoubleClick stock down 40
points. As investors fled, other firms promised to
not misuse cookies.
The advertisement
below, placed by Orb Digital, capitalized on the
bad publicity generated by a DoubleClick's
unexpected use of cookies and plans to match
on-line and off-line data profiles. Other
competitors piled on, as Wired magazine reported,
"to kick the wounded company. ClickHouse.com,
another ad network company was among those
'restating' its commitment to privacy protection
'through the non-invasive nature of its advertising
systems.'"
PrivaSeek quickly
advertised its alternate privacy protection tool
which enables users to control what information
they reveal on-line.
These and other
firms, along with energetic privacy advocates, are
far more likely to shape internet technologies into
tools that insure a level of privacy consumers are
comfortable with, than will a centralized, top-down
approach forced on the industry through additional
privacy legislation.
For private-sector
entrepreneurs, each new privacy problem offers an
opportunity for new products and services.
Two sources for
opposing views on private firms collecting
information on consumers are David Brin's
The
Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to
Choose Between Privacy and
Freedom
(argues private firms collecting consumer
information is not a big problem) and Simpson
Garfinkel's
Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st
Century
(argues it is a big problem).
Gregory F.
Rehmke is the director of high school outreach at
the Foundation for Economic Education. He is the
Editor of The Free Speaker, a publication of
the Foundation for Economic
Education.
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