Bigger than Beacon: Politician presses Google on privacy issues

December 13, 2007 | Eric Eldon | Comments | |

googlelogo1213.pngForget Beacon, the controversial new Facebook advertising feature that tracks what you buy on other sites, then sends that information to your friends on Facebook. Politicians are getting serious about bigger privacy issues on the web. Ranking Republican Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) is going after Google and its prospective $3.1 billion purchase of advertising network DoubleClick.

Yesterday, Barton sent a 24-question letter to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, asking in detail about both DoubleClick’s and Google’s privacy practices. The congressman has also complained that Schmidt ignored his requests to discuss the issues following an initial meeting between the two last month.

Google, meanwhile, says there was a mix-up in communication with Barton and is busy arranging a meeting to clear things up.

At the same time, privacy groups are asking the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission to recuse herself from reviewing the proposed DoubleClick acquisition, as her husband is apparently advising DoubleClick on antitrust issues — DoubleClick could give Google an even more dominant position in the online advertising market. The five-person FTC committee is scheduled to make a ruling this month.

The basic issue here, as we said during the height of the Beacon controversy, is whether or not companies like Google and Facebook should be allowed to collect data about your behavior across web sites without asking you first.

DoubleClick, like many other large advertising networks and now Facebook, tracks what you do on the web using web “cookies.” These cookies are parcels of text that reside in your web browser and send information to companies about sites you visit. DoubleClick uses this data to serve you banner ads, for example, that are contextually relevant to the data it collects about you.

Although you can opt out of cookies in your web browser, they are required to access password-protected sites like Facebook or Gmail.

The FTC says it gets the big picture about privacy, even though it has also stressed that its review of the DoubleClick purchase will focus on antitrust issues. As one commissioner was quoted recently, privacy issues “really do transcend any particular acquisition” — or Facebook feature.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • I guess Facebook got ahead of the line and paid the price with beacon. Ideally, all the leading sites in this space in addition to Google and Facebook do raise privacy concerns. While it is easy for politicians to raise privacy issues, the reality is that there has to be a way for these incredibly innovative companies to continue to make money as well as address privacy concerns at the same time. At present I don't think anyone has the answer to these challenges. In fact, the ground rules haven't been defined because all this is so new.
  • Pran, I agree.

    To be honest, I have given up on keeping my online activity private. I mean, my internet service provider could track every web site I visit if it wanted to (in fact, it may be doing that as I write this -- I have no way to tell).

    With that assumption, why not let these companies use the data they already have about me to serve me ads that I may be more likely to pay attention to?

    I'm not saying I want all of this to be reality, I'm just saying it is reality.
  • We shouldn't pay politicians that bother with nonsense like this. How long have advertising companies been using cookies to track web consumers? What a waste of tax payers' money. Anyone can disable cookies, block scripts or simply not go on the web. According to some politicians we need government intervention everywhere.
  • Eric, the problem is that targeted ads might be ok for you but not so for others. What if the information got into the wrong hands?

    With regards to John's point about anyone being able to disable cookies, block scripts etc. the reality is that as the web becomes more mainstream, most people don't know how to do this and are simply unaware of the consequences of their moves online.

    Also, I think it is ok for politicians to ask these questions, because it leads to legitimate public discourse and spreads awareness on the issue.
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