Sue H--Revised guidelines for BT

Behavioral targeting has been around for several years, but has recently been receiving increased attention. One of the biggest worries about BT is privacy issues. The Federal Trade Commission recently revised guidelines for behavioral targeting (February 12th) requiring websites to disclose the data they are collecting to their users and give them a chance to opt out. Behavioral targeting in a nutshell is an advertising practice in which a marketer targets ads to consumers based on their past online activity. Privacy advocates feel the new guidelines do not go far enough to protect the consumer, saying it places too heavy a burden on consumers because hundreds of sites are collecting personal information, and the average online user would be easily overwhelmed. Consumer advocacy groups were also concerned about certain categories of information--such as genetics--being used improperly and asked that these areas be entirely off limits. On the flip side Google and Yahoo praised the new guidelines, which do not require either company to change any of their current practices in regards to information gathering.