It’s Hard To Opt Out Of Behavioral Targeting? Really? Our Experiment

The Federal Trade Commission’s recent report on privacy offered a pretty damning indictment of the ad industry’s efforts to give consumers a say in how and whether data about them is collected.

The report said, in essence, that while there are ways for consumers to opt-out of behaviorally targeted advertising, they are often unclear, and consumers frequently don't know about them. Most publishers don't do a very good job of publicizing opt-out options, there is currently a pretty good one-stop shop for opting out: the Network Advertising Initiative web site, which represents dozens of ad networks.