To Stem Privacy Abuses, Industry Groups Will Track Web Trackers

A new system to police privacy abuses by companies that track consumers' Web-surfing habits for ad targeting will be launched in coming months by groups whose members include heavy users of this type of information—Internet companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft and advertising companies like WPP.

The system is part of a broader push by Madison Avenue and the Internet industry to develop stricter self-regulation, in part to protect consumers' privacy online. The self-regulatory push is aimed at warding off federal regulation of the $23 billion-a-year online-advertising industry. "What we are really talking about here is trying to make the interactive advertising supply chain much more visible, more transparent to consumers, so that they have a much better ability to understand what is going on, and act on it," says Randall Rothenberg, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group of more than 460 media and technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo. A coalition of trade groups, including the Council of Better Business Bureaus and Direct Marketing Association trade group, is leading the effort.