The Lunch Pail

It’s been a while since my last update on the Do Not Track happenings in Washington. Chatter over behavioral targeting technology and tactics seemed to have quieted down over the last few months, but now things have picked up again with the FTC stating that it is not ready to endorse a do-not-track method or advise Congress on privacy legislation.

Rosch told ClickZ that he’s skeptical of the industry’s ability to self regulate (and instead suggests additional layers of government oversight). His approach would “involve the FTC sending ad networks and other third-party ad firms requests ‘to answer under oath questions about their information practices’ related to data ‘collection, use, sharing and retention.’

“The FTC would require approval from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in order to send the requests. The FTC would then categorize data practices to inform ‘white lists’ and ‘black lists’ which could then be used by browser-based do-not-track mechanisms.”

Meanwhile, privacy advocates have begun urging the FTC to issue recommendations on flash cookies, ETags and other types of tracking technology. These kinds of technology can be used to bypass consumer privacy settings, allowing companies to track a consumer even if they have deleted cookies.

You can read more about eTags here and more about flash cookies in this post by Chris.