AOL Uses Penguin for Behavioral Targeting Tutorial

AOL has launched an international campaign to teach users about behavioral targeting & online ad serving cookies by creating a brief flash animation showing a penguin surfing the web and viewing Anchovie ads.

Hmmm Mr Penguin is serving as AOL's silent voice on privacy. (no sound in that flash movie)

If you click on the end card of the video, you can then visit the opt-out page for those cookies it shows you links to privacy policies for no less than 7 ad servers used by AOL, plus and 8th link for the NAI (National Advertising Initiative) opt-out site. From the AOL opt-out pageg, you can visit the blog of AOL's Chief Privacy Officer, Jeff Polonetsky for some research done by AOL on how users treat their own private information, like their annual income figures.

It all comes down to the fact that we SAY one thing and DO another when it comes to protecting personal details. We trade private personal and financial information for convenience and minor perks and freebies.

Well, Google, Yahoo and now AOL have come out with very different responses to this issue. I haven't found a public statement yet from MSN, but here is the MSN Opt-Out page.

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Yahoo Behavioral Advertising Cookies Opt-out

Yahoo has joined Google one day later to announce privacy practices and provides an opt-out option (although buried 3000 words into a 4500 word page.)

The Yahoo press release headline reads:

Yahoo! Announces New Privacy Choice for Consumers Will Expand Its Opt-Out Policy to Customized Advertising on Yahoo.com

However, the privacy option here is very much hidden as nobody but privacy advocates, and maybe bloggers or a rare journalist here and there, are willing to dig as deep as required to find this information.

As a service to those not willing to scour Yahoo's privacy policy and its massive response to the House Energy and Commerce Committee attached below their puff piece press release. Wow.

In addition to the Yahoo! opt-out, Blue Lithium and Right Media each also maintain their own opt-out mechanisms. The Blue Lithium opt-out is available here: http://www.bluelithium.com/optout.html and the Right Media opt-out is available here: http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/opt_out.html. As members of NAI, Yahoo! and Blue Lithium each have opt-out links available from the NAI opt-out page found here: http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp which is linked to from over 20,000 publisher sites.

Additionally, users have direct control over their Internet experience through their web browser settings. Users can delete their cookies or adjust their privacy setting in their browser today. Yahoo! helps users understand this under the special category "cookies" in our privacy policy http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/cookies/.

The

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DoubleClick & Google Content Network Opt-Out Cookie

Announcement from Google that they will enhance ad targeting through DoubleClick cookie comes with the ability to opt-out of that cookie across both networks. Follow the link to opt out of Google DoubleClick ad serving behavioral tracking. If you want to "See more relevant ads" I suggest paying attention to PPC ads in the Google search results. That is as relevant as I need, thank you.

Here is a basic video from Google about cookies.

There are more of these videos at the cookie opt-out page which do a credible job of explaining cookies, but make them seem a bit more innocuous than they are. As both a web enthusiast and a privacy advocate, I have accepted that cookies are a necessary evil - but don't agree with behavioral targeting when done across multiple sites.

I written multiple articles, most of them years ago about privacy issues, but things have evolved and become far more complex. I've accepted that few people care about privacy issues until they are personally affected in some way by some form of privacy invasion in financial, medical privacy or suffer some form of hacking, social engineering, job loss, embarrassment or suffer from some type of either real-world or cyber stalking incident.

Some privacy advocates go too far in agitating for change and that does the cause no good at all. But perhaps this small opt-out cookie to keep your web travels out of the hands of DoubleClick will contribute to a bit of digital privacy for those who do care.

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Private Eye Says Privacy is Dead

This C-Net news article focuses on how simple it is - through social networks, cell phone tracking, security cameras, credit card records, etc. - to learn almost anything about someone being researched or investigated.

I'm actually quite surprised how few TV cop shows or movies about crime solving detectives go into using the web, even though they do quite often show bad guys using technology to hack into places they don't belong and either make their criminal activity easier or to research or commit actual crimes. I always cheer the good guys in their use of the web to solve crimes and stop criminal activity because I'm a technology enthusiast and love that it can be used for good.

Maybe there are just so many times you can show someone tapping away at keyboards and staring at slick user interfaces before television or movie viewers tire of the scene or those inevitably geeky characters doing the typing.

But the point here is not that good-guy/ bad-guy drama of crime-fighting - but how easy it is to access data once it is digitally stored and/or distributed. The ease of access issue is the concern.

We've repeatedly heard the line from data miners and law enforcement that goes something like, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." That is a truism that can't be denied.

The problem for all of us comes when erroneous data or erroneous conclusions are drawn from innocent or incorrect data. The problem comes when that ease of access to data lets bad guys use technology and the web to commit a multitude of crimes.

The problem comes when data is treated with less care than it deserves by those entrusted with it and is either stolen, lost, hacked or otherwise abused due to neglect or bad policy. The problem comes when the public fails to understand how widely distributed their private data can become when posted to the web or sent digitally to anyone, anywhere.

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Privacy Capitulation: Where Do We Go From Here?

The idea that we have any privacy left is becoming sort of a naive and quaint concept. Nearly all services we use routinely can be monitored in real-time or mined from data stored in a multitude of digital storage farms - making digital record of all traffic and content. Phone service has moved to IP telephony, whether that is through Skype, business, home cable or call routers at the phone companies.

Corporate networks monitor employee activity through their computers and phone calls. Your internet service provider knows every web site you visit, every email you send/receive and every file you download and sells all of that data to marketers (in aggregate we are assured - so not just yours - everyone at once) to as many sources as they can find to pay for it. Your bank and/or credit card companies know all details of every electronic transaction immediately.

So that laundry list of potential breaches, security holes, hacks and thefts by both internal and external bad guys grows longer each day.

Recently I've been tempted to sign up for a half-dozen free web services, and due to my very unusual habit of actually reading those long "terms of service" pages presented during sign-up for web-based services or those software "End User License Agreement" (EULA) - which most of us click right past during download or installation to our machines - I stumble across one very common and unacceptable line.

... you automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) us an irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable and worldwide non-exclusive right and license to use, copy, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from and sell and distribute such materials or incorporate such materials into any form, medium or technology without compensation to you. In addition, you warrant that all so-called moral rights in those materials have been waived. None of the materials shall be subject to any obligation ...

Now the above line, along with many variations on the theme, means you are giving up your right to any content you contribute using that web service or software if it comes under the provisions of the contract - yes I said contract, which you are signing by clicking "Agree" during signup or installation of any software carrying that language.

So I've signed up for a couple, realizing that anything I post, record or upload can be recorded, stored and sold. I resolve not to put anything there that I'm not willing to lose or lose money on by selling myself. But my point here is that most users fail, not only to read, but to care about the loss of privacy or content or money due to that ridiculous provision that has become standard for most web services and many EULA's signed by millions of users.

So if nobody knows they are signing away their privacy and sometimes their profits - and even fewer care when they do know - where do we go from here? I don't have an answer and don't expect others to either. It seems we've traded privacy for convenience and in most cases, are willing to make that trade-off in order to use free or ad-supported services or software.

I've given up hope that people will begin to care about privacy until they experience identity theft or get fired from their job or lose their potential profit from great ideas because they traded away their privacy and content rights for that convenience. It's just plain sad.

Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems said it in January of 1999 - "You have no privacy - Get over it!"

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Understanding Privacy: Book from Daniel J. Solove

Understanding Privacy a new book introduced last month by Harvard University Press, written by George Washington University Law School professor Daniel J. Solove The first chapter is available for free download (PDF) I may have the opportunity to review this in the near future. Watch this space ...

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Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference 2008

Below is the announcement email from - well as you can see:

COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY: TECHNOLOGY POLICY '08
http://cfp2008.org/
18th Annual CFP conference
May 20-23, 2008
Omni Hotel
New Haven, CT

DEADLINES this Week:
Early Bird Registration: Fri., May 2, 2008
YJoLT Tech Policy Essay Contest: Mon., May 5, 2008

Conference Blog: http://cfp08.blogspot.com/
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10926816973

ABOUT CFP: TECHNOLOGY POLICY `08

What should the technology policy priorities of the next administration
be?

As the choice of presidential candidates becomes clearer and election
year moves towards a comparison of the candidates' platforms on the
issues, technology policy is increasingly relevant to the forefront of
public debate. In the areas of privacy, intellectual property,
cybersecurity, telecommunications, and freedom of speech, topics that
were once confined to experts now appear in the mainstream of political
issues. We now know that our decisions about technology policy are being
made at a time as the architectures of our information and communication
technologies are still being built.

This year, the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference is
focusing on those issues at the forefront of technology policy this
election year. With plenary panels on the "National Security State and
the Next Administration" and "The 21st Century Panopticon?" the
discussions taking place look towards our present and future priorities.

CFP: Technology Policy '08 is an opportunity to participate in shaping
those issues being made into laws and regulations and those technological
infrastructures being developed. Policies ranging from spyware and
national security, to ISP filtering and patent reform, e-voting to
electronic medical records, and more will be addressed by expert panels
of technologists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists. The
panel topics are listed below and full panel descriptions are available
on the conference website at:

http://www.cfp2008.org/wiki/index.php/Program.

The CFP: Technology Policy `08 conversation has already begun in the
virtual spaces connected to the conference. Even if you are unable to
attend the conference this year, there are several opportunities to
participate remotely. The guiding principles that ought to guide our
policies are being debated on the conference blog. Social networking
groups on Facebook and LinkedIn are providing new spaces for the CFP
community to meet and discuss. The Yale Journal of Law and Technology is
hosting a call for essays, on the priorities of the next administration,
with more details below.

We look forward to seeing you in New Haven on May 20-23.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Plenary Sessions
Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive
The 21st Century Panopticon?
The National Security State and the Next Adminstration

Tutorials
A Short History of Privacy
Constitutional Law in Cyberspace
e-Deceptive Campaign Practices: Elections 2.0
Maintaining Privacy While Accessing On-line Information

Panel Sessions
Activism and Education Using Social Networks
Breaking the Silence: Iranians Find a Voice on the Internet
Charismatic Content: Wikis, Social Networks, and the Future of
User-Generated Content
Filtering Out Copyright Infringement: Possibilities, Practicalities, and
Legalities
Filtering and Censorship in Europe
Hate Speech and Oppression in Cyberspace
Interoperability at the Crossroads?: The "Liberal Order" versus
Fragmentation
Law, Regulation, and Software Licensing for the Electronic Medical Record
Measuring Global Threats to Internet Freedom
Network Neutrality: Beyond the Slogans
New Challenges for Spyware Policy
Patents: The Bleeding Edge of Technology Policy
Privacy, Reputation, and the Management of Online Communities
Rights & Responsibilities for Software Programs?
States as Incubators of Change
"The Transparent Society:" Ten Years Later
Towards Trustworthy e-Voting: An Open Source Approach?

CALL FOR ESSAYS

Yale Journal of Law & Technology Call for Essays on the Technology Policy
of the New Administration
Deadline: Monday, May 5th

The Yale Journal of Law & Technology (YJoLT) is seeking essay-length
submissions concerning the technology policy platform of the new American
presidential administration. Essays selected for publication will appear
in the Fall Issue of YJoLT (publication date November 2008).

Ideal submissions will discuss the priorities and guiding principles that
American technology policy should follow. Submissions analyzing a
particular technology policy issue in depth will also be accepted.

Essays of less than 5,000 words are preferred. Please submit all essays
to yjolt.submissions@gmail.com. Please include the text "CFP Essay"
in the subject line of the email. The authors of essays selected for
publication will be notified on a rolling basis. Any questions can be
directed to Lara Rogers, lara.rogers@yale.edu.

--------------
Eddan Katz
CFP: Technology Policy '08 Program Chair
http://www.cfp2008.org/

International Affairs Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/
Lecturer and Associate Research Scholar, Yale Law School
Senior Fellow, Yale Information Society Project
http://isp.law.yale.edu/

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