The federal government has put Google, Microsoft, Apple and other technology companies on notice: Give consumers a way prevent advertisers from tracking their movements across the Web — or face regulation.
Yet for all its innovative know-how and entrepreneurial spirit, the technology industry has yet to agree on a simple, meaningful solution to protect consumer privacy on the Internet.
So privacy watchdogs and lawmakers are stepping up the pressure, calling for laws that would require companies to stop the digital surveillance of consumers who don’t want to be tracked. They argue that effective privacy tools are long overdue from an industry that typically moves at breakneck speed.
“I want ordinary consumers to know what is being done with their personal information, and I want to give them the power to do something about it,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said at a recent hearing.
Washington’s call to arms is a response to growing concern that invasive Internet marketing practices are eroding privacy online as every consumer move is observed, analyzed and harvested for profit.
Online publishers, advertisers and ad networks use “cookies,” Web beacons and other sophisticated tracking tools to follow consumers around the Internet — monitoring what sites they visit and what links they click, what they search for and what they buy. Then they mine that information to deliver what they hope will be relevant pitches — a practice called behavioral advertising.
