Privacy Harbor™

Ever wonder why the banner ads you see in your email happen to feature a product that you just purchased from your favorite online retailer? Or a highlight appears for a hotel deal to that quaint European city that you and your friend were just chatting about over instant message? These advertisements are no coincidence, and most email users want them stopped.

Many well known email programs scan your personal online conversations searching for information that allows them to sell to you, the unassuming user. According to the online study, “Americans Reject Tailored Advertising,” performed by the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 66 percent of Internet users do not want marketers to send them tailored advertisements. Furthermore, when these users are informed that their personal content is being repurposed, in order to create these tailored advertisements, the results show that between 73 and 86 percent do not want such advertising.

As much of the Internet is being powered by advertising dollars, this problem is rampant. Such targeted invasions of privacy are not only beginning to catch the attention of email users, but the policy makers in Washington as well. The Tennessean reports that U.S. Representative Richard Boucher, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, is drafting legislation that will require websites to prominently disclose what information they gather on visitors as well as obtain user approval before collecting data to share with other advertising companies.

Even if Congress enacts such laws, online tracking of consumers will continue in some form or another, particularly by retailers, as highlighted in a recent USA Today article. So let’s start the discussion:

How do you feel about advertisers and retailers taking your personal information and creating tailored email advertising?

PrivacyHarbor.com private email does not mine or sell your information; we’re in the privacy business, not the advertising business. Feel free to contact us to learn more about this subject and the steps PrivacyHarbor.com takes provide you with secure email and to ensure your absolute privacy.

Tags: banner web ads, data harvesting, data mining, email targeted marketing, free private email, private email, retail online sales, secure email, secure webmail, Tailored Advertising, targeted ads, targeted advertising

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Internet Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.