The New York Times is reporting that a new study about online tracking will be released today at the Amsterdam Privacy Conference. The study, performed by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that most internet users do not understand how advertisers track their online behavior. Most of the surveyed individuals could not correctly answer true/false questions about tracking practices on medical and other free websites, while nearly 90 percent of respondents to the study had not heard of the Federal Trade Commission's proposed "Do Not Track" mechanism. Still, when asked about what they thought the Do Not Track function should accomplish, more than half responded that it should prevent advertisers from collecting any information about their online activities. This is a more restrictive that what has actually been proposed for Do Not Track - which is to simply prevent advertisers from displaying targeted ads. Under the current proposal, they are still able to collect information about users' browsing habits.
It is unclear what implications this will have for online advertising in the future. On the one hand, the study indicates that internet users are uncomfortable with the idea of tracking and targeted advertising. On the other hand, it also indicates that most users are only vaguely aware of these practices anyway. One way or another, most of the free internet content and services to which everyone has gotten accustomed rely on the strength of targeted advertising to generate most or all of their revenue. If broad anti-tracking regulations are implemented, it could have a major effect on these free sites. I would be curious to see a similar study to this one where the questions were framed in terms of a tradeoff - to get an idea of just how much people would actually be willing to give up in exchange for additional privacy.
New York Times
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