Privacy Concerns of Ad Tracking

    Every day, millions of users log on to various search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to help them connect with the information they are searching for, but what many people don't know is that their every click is being tracked, logged, and even sold to businesses trying to better target their target audiences. There are many ways that people are tracked on the internet, but not all of these methods are forthcoming about the extent to which they are tracking users.

For instance, the popular search engine, Google, employs behavioral advertising using cookie-based tracking systems to monitor a users browsing content. Then Google will attempt to provide that user exposure to advertisements that align with these preferences. These preferences are not set or provided by the user themselves, but are rather taken from the user's page browsing and ad clicking history. While many people can appreciate this more accurate type of targeting to make advertisements more relevant, others are disturbed by the fact that Google doesn't tell its users beforehand that their online actions will be tracked. The merit in computer based tracking system is the accuracy and ability to measure advertisement exposure. Programs like Google AdSense Analytics are able to track and record click data, storing and organizing it into readable and measurable results. This is something that has never been available before in the advertising world and is becoming a key marketing tool for many companies.

One troubling instance of behavioral targeting that I have experienced personally are ads pertaining to searches that I have done relating to my health. Many people that are diagnosed with health conditions use the largest source of information available to them to learn more about it, the Internet. A day after doing some searches related to my condition, I started to see ads pertaining to the issue I had been searching. This seriously bothered me because I normally keep my health issues private and it occurred to me that somewhere, someone had a file of information about my health as well as all other searches I have made using that search engine, and I didn't ever explicitly give them permission to access this information.
As privacy concerns grow stronger, new search engines like Startpage and others are beginning to provide services that promise not to track its user's browsing or clicking histories. In the future, we should expect to see more of these sites as well as those that offer opt in cookies, giving users the option of being subject to behavioral targeting rather than automatically infringing on user's privacy. As privacy debates continue, it is also likely that the government will feel pressure to create policy relating to online privacy issues, creating new restrictions for search sites.