Can We Trust The Online Ad Industry To Regulate Itself?

Internet advertisers this month took a fresh stab at persuading federal privacy regulators to leave them alone. The advertisers are touting new industry guidelines which they believe will resolve consumer concerns about data disclosure once and for all.

Why, then, does the effort still feel like wishful thinking? For anyone who missed it, the advertisers’ new initiative is an expanded set of principles to govern what they can do with the information they collect about people’s internet surfing habits. The ad companies have already provided a consumer opt-out system but the Federal Trade Commission suggested the scheme did not go far enough. The new industry rules are intended to provide additional measures of reassurance, for instance by saying that companies can’t use browsing information to help determine whether someone is eligible for credit or insurance. According to Stu Ingis, general counsel for the Digital Advertising Alliance, ad companies weren’t using the information for eligibility reasons in the first place. Still, he said in an interview, the new principles formally expand the existing guidelines and represent “a holistic response to policy makers and consumers.”

So what does all this actually mean? In a nutshell, it means the industry thinks it has done enough to allay privacy concerns by offering consumers a one-stop website where they can see which ad companies are tracking them.