Companies have long sought to find ways of improving the effectiveness of online advertising. Data collection and aggregation of consumer information is one way to personalize ads based upon data about user preferences, selections, and purchase history. Furthermore, social media apps are trending towards ways of sharing user updates in real-time which would enable companies to deliver timely and targeted ads to users. As consumer awareness of these trends increase, many are discovering the impacts of these trends on the availability of their personal information and finding some unwelcome surprises.
Social Media
Recently, a group of users filed a potential class action lawsuit against 18 social media firms for supplying mobile apps that collect and store information from smartphone address books, without obtaining the user permission. This was discovered on Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod device and on mobile devices running Android. The companies being sued include Apple, Path, Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, LinkedIn, Beluga, Hipster, Yelp, and Gowalla (among others).
In January, Facebook introduced a new set of “frictionless” apps designed to post a stream of users’ activities in real-time without the need to obtain the user’s approval before a post is made.
Netflix
In 2011, Netflix was sued for retaining users’ rental history information, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). Netflix is taking action to have the VPPA repealed and is interested in integration with Facebook (using the frictionless sharing platform) which would enable sharing of users’ rental viewing history with other users on Facebook.
In March, Google changed its privacy policy and decided to aggregate data about users across various Google services, enabling it to link data about a user across services. Since then, lawsuits against Google have been filed alleging that aggregation of user data across services violates Google’s previous privacy policies (which indicated that consumer information associated with one service would not be used for other services) and that Google did not provide users with a clear mechanism for opting out.
Steps Taken by U.S. Government to Protect Consumer Privacy
Obama Administration has proposed a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which would give consumers control over what personal information can be collected about them. Namely, it would require consumers to be informed before data is collected and to be given the opportunity to opt-out. It would also give consumers the ability to review and confirm the validity of any information collected about them which could be used for decision-making purposes. The FTC has made several recommendations including requiring a “Do Not Track” mechanism in the browser that would give consumers control over which specific information is collected about them online.
Observations From A Seattleite 