Complaint and Request ) for Inquiry and Injunctive Relief ) Concerning Unfair ) and Deceptive ) Online Marketing Practices ) ______)
1 November 2006 ______________________________ ) Complaint and Request ) for Inquiry and Injunctive Relief ) Concerning Unfair ) and Deceptive ) Online Marketing Practices ) ______________________________) Deborah Platt Majoras, Chairman Room 440 Federal Trade Commission 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20580 Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour Federal Trade Commission Room 326 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20580 Commissioner Jon D. Leibowitz Federal Trade Commission Room 340 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20580 Commissioner William E. Kovacic Room 540 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20580 Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch Room 528 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20580 Dear Chairman Majoras: The online marketplace, which now accounts for over $100 billion in U.S. e-commerce 1 sales annually, has evolved rapidly over the past decade.1 The policies governing consumer privacy on the Internet have failed to keep pace with the developments that continue to re-shape the online world, however. Privacy policies designed for a largely static, text-based World Wide Web offer little protection in the dynamic Web of the present, in which both rich-media content, and the array of sophisticated marketing technologies designed to support that content, are assembled and re-assembled on the fly, customized and targeted for the user. Many of these data collection techniques, automated and operating in real time, are based on sophisticated algorithms that analyze user behavior online—down to the level of "micro-actions"—and shape content and advertising accordingly. For example, as Touch Clarity (a developer of consumer profiling software tools) explains, its Behavioral Targeting technology "is essentially … an automated process of intelligent listening and responding, working with each individual visitor, based upon everything they have expressed through their click-stream interactions … to-date.
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