Firefox 5 Adds Cross-Platform “Do Not Track”, and Puts it in Privacy Tab

A few months ago Mozilla released Firefox 4, which featured an important "Do Not Track" function which informs websites and advertisers whether you wish to have your activity monitored and collected for behavioral targeting purposes. The problem, however, was that…

Firefox 4 Adds “Do Not Track”, but Buries It

Mozilla has released Firefox version 4, featuring a new look and feel (Chrome, anyone?), and new privacy and security features. The feature with the most potential -- and the most buzz -- is “Do Not Track,” which "lets you tell…

Google Launches Behavioral Advertising System, With Impressive (But Not Quite Perfect) Privacy Controls

Today, Google announced its long-awaited behavioral targeted advertising program. Building from its acquisition of DoubleClick, Google's new ad system -- which it refers to as "interest-based advertising" -- will use cookies to track users across the multitude of sites that…

More Details on Yahoo’s New Ad Sales System, AMP!

Yahoo has issued a press release on their new ad sales system, AMP! that provided a few new insights into this "powerful new online advertising platform." The New York Times broke this story earlier, which I blogged about here. Interestingly,…

Proposed NY Law to Limit the Web Tracking also Requires Access to Data Collected

On the heels of growing public awareness of how "large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user…

FTC Proposes Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising

On the heels of clearing the way for the Google-DoubleClick deal, and resulting from a recent meeting on behavioral advertising, the FTC today released a statement for comment on behavioral advertising: "Possible Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising" (PDF). In…

Panoptic Sorting on the Rise as MySpace Enters Behavioral Targeting Foray

Following recent announcements by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Facebook, MySpace has announced it will begin targeting advertisements based on users profiles and behavior on their social networking platform. As explained in this NYTimes article: The algorithms make their judgments partly…