More than 90 percent of U.S. citizens polled in a recent TRUSTe survey said that online privacy is a “really” or “somewhat” important issue, and just 28 percent said they were comfortable with advertisers using behavioral targeting; more than half of respondents said they were not.
More than 75 percent of respondents agreed that the Internet is not well regulated, and said that naive users are at risk.
In February, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised its suggestions for behavioral targeting rules for the advertising industry, including that Web sites should disclose when they are participating in behavioral advertising and ask users for permission to use their browsing history.
FTC commissioner Jon Leibowitz warns that intervention will be needed if the industry does not respond to the new suggested regulations.
“Put simply, this could be the last clear chance to show that self-regulation can–and will–effectively protect consumers’ privacy,” Leibowitz says. More than half of the respondents in the survey said the government should be “wholly” or “very” responsible for protecting individuals’ online privacy, although 75 percent of respondents also said that people should be wholly or very responsible for protecting their own privacy.
[Via NYTimes.com]
