Feds Want to Help Cover Your Web Tracks

The Federal Trade Commission is considering guidelines governing how online advertisers target consumers based on their Web surfing—and some lawmakers want them to be mandatory, the Washington Post reports. Privacy advocates are pushing to limit behavioral tracking, but some Internet companies say that could mean sites won’t be able to keep offering content free.
 

Companies that track Internet users’ behavior say the data collected is anonymous because they don’t keep personally identifiable information, but privacy activists disagree. "It is not anonymous if the companies are tracking the same user over time," says one. Meanwhile, a rep from the Newspaper Association of America argued the new guidelines could "jeopardize the consumer's ability to get free content on the Internet." (More online privacy stories.)