Privacy Group To File Complaint Against DoubleClick

Raising the stakes in the ongoing fight over online "profiling," Internet privacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today confirmed that it is preparing to lodge a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against one of the nation's largest Internet advertisers, DoubleClick, Inc.

Driving the complaint is mounting concern over the controversial practice of profiling, EPIC Director Marc Rotenberg told Newsbytes today.

Profiling is a practice whereby banner advertisers collect information about the users who view their ads in order to target their sales pitches. Because such data collection activities take place underneath the radar screens of all but the most sophisticated Internet users, it is a practice that is particularly worrisome for many consumer and privacy advocates.

Although a number of online advertising firms engage in profiling, EPIC is concentrating its attentions on DoubleClick because that company has recently broadened its profiling activities to track and record personally identifiable information from Internet users, Rotenberg said. That broadening came after DoubleClick made public assertions that it collected only anonymous data, he added.

DoubleClick was not immediately available for comment.

Concerns about profiling caused the US Commerce Department to hold an all-day symposium on the topic in November. At that event Daley warned that if the industry did not check its own profiling activities, the government would be forced to step in.

In an attempt to address the profiling issue and forestall government intervention, a group of 10 large Internet advertisers (including DoubleClick) used the Commerce Department event to unveil a program to allow consumers to "opt-out" of some data collection activities.

But the program, called the Network Advertising Initiative, has apparently failed to allay the privacy concerns surrounding profiling.

EPIC expects to file its complaint in mid-February and will release more information closer to the filing date, Rotenberg said.

The Network Advertising Initiative has a Website located at http://www.networkadvertising.org .

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .