Privacy – Senate Hearings

Senate Hearings – Tracking and Privacy

We’ve written previously and I’m fairly certain you are aware of the privacy issues facing the consumer and users of social media and the Internet.

There is a lot of talk about self-regulation by the online advertising industry in the United States and although the effort is noticeable, it appears Congress and the Senate could be moving ahead with hearings as early as February this year.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (iab) is leading the “self regulation” solution. According to Mike Zaneis at the iab, there are over 100 major ad companies and agencies utilizing the “privacy icon”. The privacy icon allows consumers to opt out of tracking.

Tracking is accomplished by leaving a piece of text on a users or consumers computer that allows tracking. This text is referred to as a cookie or web cookie.

Realistically, we all know that self-regulation will not be effective and won’t work. Government in Canada has been very active in the Internet, web and social media space ensuring Canadians have a degree of privacy. It appears that the US Senate is going to push hard in the United States as well. Frankly to be expected.

I’ve noted prior, privacy is the cost of this ride, especially as it relates to social media. Technology has advanced in such a way that we basically have very little privacy and this trend will continue.

We are all now part of a community, no different than in the 1940’s and 1950’s, you lived in a community and everyone knew your parents, your family, where you went to school and work, your friends and lovers We’ve always been part of a community.

Today, it’s a much larger community and privacy if you ever really had it … is a dead issue government involvement or not, it’s a new world out there.

Michael Bickerton, Raven5 Ltd, Toronto, January 2011

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