Privacy Groups Propose Do-Not-Track List
Demands Would Hinder Marketers' Behavioral-Targeting Practices Online — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Privacy advocates are expected to propose the creation of a do-not-track list, a sort of internet version of the Do Not Call Registry, at a news conference tomorrow.
Context & Ripple Effects
Privacy advocates are taking the registry model that reshaped telemarketing — the Do Not Call Registry — and proposing its internet equivalent: a do-not-track list that consumers could join to opt out of behavioral profiling. The venue matters: the proposal lands via AdAge, a marketer-facing publication, because the group explicitly frames it as a hindrance to behavioral targeting, the practice of building profiles from browsing behavior to serve relevant ads. With no prior corpus coverage on this beat, this appears to be the opening move in what the advocates themselves cast as a direct collision between consumer privacy demands and the economics of targeted online advertising.
First-order effects
- Behavioral-targeting marketers and the ad networks that supply their audience data face a proposed mechanism that would let consumers withdraw consent for cross-site tracking en masse, rather than site by site.
Second-order effects
- If the proposal gains regulatory traction, ad networks and their trade groups face a choice between lobbying against a mandated list and offering self-regulatory opt-outs of their own to preempt stricter rules.
Third-order effects
- Should the registry model migrate from phone calls to web browsing, online-privacy enforcement would shift toward centralized, government-administered opt-out lists — a structural change to how behavioral advertising acquires its raw material.
The trend: Privacy advocates are importing the Do Not Call Registry's mass opt-out model into online advertising, turning behavioral targeting from an invisible default into something consumers can refuse collectively.