Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are moving quickly to respond to calls from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and consumer watchdogs for a "do not track" option that allows Web surfers to protect their private information from being exploited by advertising networks. By announcing plug-in software and new anti-tracking features, the major Web browser makers have decided it's in their best interest to offer such options, even if it comes at the expense of some revenue generated by ads that use online behavior data to target consumers.
Users of Google's Chrome Web browser can now download a plug-in called Keep My Opt-Outs, which blocks advertisers from 46 different ad networks, including Google's, and lets people decline personalized, targeted ads. The idea is to offer Chrome users a permanent, one-click control for advertising-related cookies, according to the company's Web site.
Third-party behavioral advertising accounted for, at most, about 4 percent (less than $1 billion) of 2009 U.S. online advertising expenditures, Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student in computer science and law and computer science at Stanford University, blogged last week on the university's Center for Internet and Society site. Whereas the use of third-party behavioral advertising is rapidly growing, the online advertising market as a whole is growing too—projections place behavioral advertising at only 7 percent of the U.S. online advertising market in 2014, Mayer noted.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
