Data Security & Privacy

‘Do Not Track’ Debate Tests Government’s Ability to Regulate Internet Privacy

Negotiations in the ongoing debate over how internet service companies, like Facebook, Inc., and Google, Inc., will be able to use personal information to track the browsing habits of its patrons have apparently hit a stalemate.  Unless mediators between the Obama Administration, privacy advocate groups, and Internet industry firms can come to some sort of amiable solution, it appears that legislative action is likely to occur.  For years, government agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission, have allowed the private sector to “self-regulate” itself when dealing with the monitoring of consumer online behaviors, or securing mission-critical data.  However, with the increase in data loss due to inadequate internal governance protocols, and the booming business of “big data,” the eventuality of legislative action may be inevitable.

The interested parties in this debate are so diametrically opposed that they cannot even agree on what the term “Do Not Track” means.  The reality is that web-based firms are tracking and monitoring our online habits.  Their position is that if a consumer does not want to be tracked, then they are missing the opportunity to have ads specifically targeted to their browsing habits.  It does not mean they will never get any solicited, but rather the solicitation will not be “targeted” advertising.  Privacy advocates argue that web-based firms are creating an economic gain from the browsing habits of consumers without any sort of compensation to the individual from which the data is derived (i.e. compensate the user if you are going to make money from their online habits). 

Predictions are that in this election-cycle year, pressures from abroad to enforce better privacy standards, and lack of any sort of uniform definition of what “Do Not Track” means, only leads most industry experts to conclude that legislative action will be forming in the next 12 to 14 months.

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