WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are proposing to create a “Do Not Track” tool for the Internet so consumers could prevent marketers from tracking their Web- browsing habits and other online behavior to target advertising.
The proposal, inspired by the government’s existing “Do Not Call” registry for telemarketers, is among the recommendations outlined in a privacy report released Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission. The report lays out a broad framework for protecting consumer privacy online and off line as personal-data collection becomes ubiquitous, often without consumers’ knowledge.
The FTC hopes the report will guide the marketing industry as it develops self-regulatory principles to define acceptable corporate behavior. The FTC also is trying to influence policymakers as they draft new rules to protect privacy. The agency has limited authority to write those rules itself, so new regulations would likely require congressional action.
Safeguarding consumer privacy, the agency says, is critical since marketers are increasingly analyzing the websites that consumers visit, the links they click, their Internet searches, their online and offline purchases, the physical locations of their wireless devices, and all sorts of personal information they disclose on social-networking sites.
So far, FTC Chairman Jon Leibo witz said, the marketing industry has not done nearly enough to make sure people understand what personal information is being collected or to provide them adequate control over that data collection.
