Hasta La Creative!

The industry conversation about data tracking and collection practices generally keeps to a dull roar, but recently, with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working to push its “Do Not Track” (DNT) specification to final adoption, the volume has picked up. Adding heat but no light, Jason Kint, the chief executive of the Online Publishers Association, recently published an article that criticized the growing efforts on behalf of data-driven companies like Turn to stop DNT. Kint was right about one thing: We absolutely do oppose DNT. Here’s why — and why you should, too.

First, Do Not Track does not support, but rather undermines, consumer privacy. The point of DNT is to empower customers to understand what personal information is being collected about them and to control how that personal information is subsequently used. This is built into the name itself; the regulation is intended to allow a consumer who does not want to be tracked by companies to click a button on her browser that says “Do Not Track.” But the proposed specification does not give consumers that control, and that is unfair and deceptive.

The DNT proposal from the W3C does not actually stop personal information from being collected and used. In fact, the companies that collect the most data and the most sensitive data — Facebook, Google, AOL, Yahoo and Amazon — will, under the proposed standards, be allowed to continue collecting massive amounts of personal information about their users, even those users that have clicked on that DNT button.

Continue reading at AdAge.com