Center for Democracy & Technology
Online Behavioral Advertising: Industry’s Current Self-Regulatory Framework Is Necessary, But Still Insufficient On Its Own to Protect Consumers
December 2009

You can read the full report here.

The Center for Democracy & Technology indicates that it understands the importance of advertising in the marketplace.  “Consumers clearly benefit from a rich diversity of content, services and applications that are provided without charge and are supported by advertising revenue.”  However, CDT also acknowledges the vitally important privacy risks that are at stake with behavioral advertising.

The CDT’s report promotes a policy direction of Congressional action.  The report does feel that self-regulatory methods are very beneficial, but that they have not been adequate in their reach and will not be effective enough for consumer privacy needs.  The CDT calls for baseline regulations from which self-regulation can build.

The CDT calls for self-regulation and FTC rulemaking with use of the FTC’s Fair Information Practice principles (FIPs).  These FIPs would include:

• Transparency
• Individual Participation
• Purpose Specification
• Data Minimization
• Use Limitation
• Data Quality and Integrity
• Security
• Accountability and Auditing

The principles are broken down in detail within the report.

You can read the full report here.