Beware of Tracking while Surfing Online
By: Amrendra Kr. Singh | Posted: 23rd September 2008
The every moment you spend on the internet, is tracked by the sites you surfed their. The information you share there may be trapped by many advertisers and online marketers to utilize it for their commercial purposes. Since every one has a privacy issue, you too may be worried after hearing such facts, as you will never want discloses your personal information to any third party without your will. You are not a single culprit in this mess, but most of the net visitors are almost unaware of this and they hardly pay attention at this.
A recent study shows that the average American consumer is largely unaware that such tracking goes on, the extent to which it is happening or how exactly information is being used. A top research house named Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and Annenberg public policy center at the University of Pennsylvania has revealed this fact after doing a research on nearly 1200 adults.
The report shows that consumers still think that privacy policies are representing that the Web site will not sell or use data in specific ways, but there is still a far deviation in the consumers’ perceived thought and websites’ promises.
Still, when survey respondents were offered a clear explanation of an online advertising model, about 85 percent rejected the idea that a site they value and trust should be allowed to serve up click stream advertisements based on data from their visits to various other sites.
Moreover when a website pledges to not disclose your personal information to any third party, it more stores such information for longer periods and utilize them in making commercial deal for having a potential database.
However with the growing awareness and staunch obligations from the consumers, now a number of online company have started taking solid steps towards it and offering option of either sharing the information or not depending upon the wish of the consumers.
Now that your personal information is far more costly than any deal and it can often led to greater damage, you should always be concerned about this. The up-coming FTC event has something new towards such problem and consumers are expecting much more regarding their online privacy on this platform.
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Tags: third party, extent, advertisers, advertisements, consumers, online marketers, periods, culprit, privacy policies, commercial purposes, adults, university of pennsylvania, university of california, survey respondents, pledges