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Online behavioral targeting and its privacy concerns.
saeed_ahmed
Posts: 1 Newbie
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More than one and half billion people use internet today (Internetworldstat, 2010). They share and leave vast amount of information online which is valuable for online advertisers and marketers.
[/FONT] Online advertising companies also called advertising networks track users’ online activities and build their online profiles which contain information such as which websites they visit, which products they buy. Thereafter, these advertising networks send users relevant advertisements based on their browsing behavior. This method is called online behavioral targeting (OBT).
This detailed tracking of poses severe threats to privacy of online users. Recently, OBT has been recognized as a top online privacy threat. The advertising networks track users on multiple websites and thus compile their detailed online profile full of their information such as information related to health and finance. OBT poses a threat to consumer autonomy because of data collection without user consent.
[FONT="]Think about a scenario which highlights the dangerous nature of online tracking: a particular online user who has visited a health website to find out how to cure from a particular disease then visits an insurance company’s website to get a quote for her health insurance and the health insurance company has data about the user that she had visited a particular health website and browed pages related to cure a particular type of disease. Does this not seem a frightening concern for a particular user who may be charged more for insurance just because of his/her browsing behavior?
Any comments or suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Saeed Ahmed.
[/FONT]
More than one and half billion people use internet today (Internetworldstat, 2010). They share and leave vast amount of information online which is valuable for online advertisers and marketers.
[/FONT] Online advertising companies also called advertising networks track users’ online activities and build their online profiles which contain information such as which websites they visit, which products they buy. Thereafter, these advertising networks send users relevant advertisements based on their browsing behavior. This method is called online behavioral targeting (OBT).
This detailed tracking of poses severe threats to privacy of online users. Recently, OBT has been recognized as a top online privacy threat. The advertising networks track users on multiple websites and thus compile their detailed online profile full of their information such as information related to health and finance. OBT poses a threat to consumer autonomy because of data collection without user consent.
[FONT="]Think about a scenario which highlights the dangerous nature of online tracking: a particular online user who has visited a health website to find out how to cure from a particular disease then visits an insurance company’s website to get a quote for her health insurance and the health insurance company has data about the user that she had visited a particular health website and browed pages related to cure a particular type of disease. Does this not seem a frightening concern for a particular user who may be charged more for insurance just because of his/her browsing behavior?
Any comments or suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Saeed Ahmed.
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0
Comments
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Yeah but they track your web usage using cookies but if you set your browser to delete cookies when you close it that's kicked that plan into touch.
And if you've got Adblock and Flashblock then you won't be bothered by adverts. NoScript also does a very good job of screening out unwanteds.
You're just scaremongering.0
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