Congress unimpressed by Embarq's web tracking ‘opt-out'

US-- A government committee looking into behavioural tracking says it is “troubled” by the way customers were informed of a test of NebuAd's behavioural targeting system.

In a letter to the House of Representative's subcommittee on telecommunications and the internet this week, phone and internet provider Embarq revealed that it gave users the chance to opt out of the test in an amendment to the privacy policy on its website.

Embarq's president and CEO Tom Gerke said that it followed the “prevailing industry practices” of online advertising networks, and was in line with the Federal Trade Commission's principles for privacy and behavioural advertising.

But Congressman Ed Markey, who chairs the committee, said he was “still troubled” by the firm's failure to inform its consumers directly of the test and by “the notion that an opt-out option is a sufficient standard for such sweeping data gathering”.

Of 26,000 users in the test, which was carried out in Gardner, Kansas, only 15 – less than 0.1% – opted out, Embarq said. A committee spokesperson told Research that the “exceptionally low number” suggests that updating the privacy policy was “not the best way to inform customers”.

While behavioural tracking firms have insisted that the data they collect is anonymous, critics say that the profiles they build of users could be used to identify an individual – especially when data is gathered by ISPs, which can record everything a person does on the internet.

Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told a Senate hearing earlier this month that the supposedly anonymous data being collected by companies like NebuAd was “at best pseudononymous” – not containing information to directly identify a person, but capable of isolating an individual user's activity, and monitoring everything they do.

UK phone and internet provider BT recently faced criticism after it emerged that it had conducted two trials of Phorm's ad targeting system without informing its customers.

Embarq has said it “has no plans for more tests for general deployment of this technology, until such times as privacy concerns have been addressed”. The committee said it will continue to monitor the issue and consider whether legislation is needed.

Author: Robert Bain

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