Search and Privacy
Alissa Cooper, at the Center for Democracy and Technology, has just published a superb paper on search log files. She does a great job at walking through all the reasons search engines retain a person’s searches, flags the privacy risks of having those queries sitting around log term, and reviews potential solutions.
As search becomes an increasingly essential part of so many Internet users daily lives, the breadth and depth of information contained in query logs grows to unparalleled levels. As a body of data that can reveal the interests, preferences, search strategies, and linguistic behaviors of entire populations, query logs are a true bounty for research of all kinds, conducted internally, at the search engine companies, and externally, by academics and others.
But the great promise of query logs as a research tool is bound by the privacy risks that arise for some of the very same reasons that the logs are so useful in the first place—the richness of detail that they offer about individuals’ lives.
Achieving the right balance between protecting privacy and promoting the utility of the logs is thus difficult but necessary to ensure that Internet users can continue to rely on Web search without fear of adverse privacy consequences.
We will look forward to hosting some frank discussions at the Forum the about the risks and rewards of log file retention, by search engines as well as adservers. As Alissa lays out, there is much more companies can do in this area to maintain the functions users want, while reducing privacy consequences.
Mobile Cookies
As people increasingly use mobile devices to access the Internet, online privacy issues arise in new ways and some of the old problems arise in new forms. One of the factors that has limited behavioral targeting by businesses across web sites viewed on a standard mobile phone is the lack of a “cookie” that could be used to track the user across the sites they visit. One of the critical privacy issues for mobile marketers is give users control over cookies that track their online behavior . Managing tracking tools in a way that leaves users firmly in control is a must if mobile personalization is to succeed. If they go down the path of telling consumers “we will track you but trust us to do the right thing” but don’t give consumers control, the model will not work.
Now one company, Ringleader Digital, claims to have built an ad network enabling targeting using a cookie-like state identifier they call Media Stamp. Eager to learn about the choices and controls that such an ad network will provide for users, We navigated to the their site to find out something about the privacy options. How will users manage this mobile cookie? How can the tracking be turned on or off? Unfortunately the site doesn’t seem to have a privacy policy nor any other details that we could find. Not a good sign!
In some later press stories, we see Ringleader claiming that they do provide an opt-out. But if we can’t easily find it, how will the average user?
(By the ways, kudos to MediaPost’s Wendy Davis, one of the savviest reporters covering the online ad industry for immediately flagging the privacy problem the minute this mobile cookie was announced)
About the Forum
Our Advisory Board – 2008:
Members of the FPF Advisory Board provide input to the Forum in support of transparency, user control and the advancement of responsible data practices. By serving as advisors, they are not responsible for the content of the website, nor do they necessarily endorse the positions taken by FPF. Advisors serve in a personal capacity and their affiliation does not indicate the endorsement of their corporation or organization.
Annie I. Antón, Professor of Computer Science, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University.
Dorothy Attwood, Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, AT&T
Elise Berkower, Associate General Counsel, Privacy, The Nielsen Company
Joan (Jodie) Z. Bernstein, Counsel, Kelley Drye & Warren, LLP and former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission
Bruce Boyden, Assistant Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School
Allen Brandt, Corporate Counsel, Data Privacy & Protection, Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC)
Kathryn C. Brown, Senior Vice President, Public Policy Development and Corporate Responsibility, Verizon
James M. Byrne, Chief Privacy Officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Ryan Calo, Resident Fellow, Center for Internet & Society at the Stanford Law School
Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Ontario Privacy Commissioner
Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, University of Maryland Law School
Maureen Cooney, Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President for Public Policy, TRUSTe
Lorrie Faith Cranor, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Mary Culnan, Slade Professor of Management and Information Technology, Bentley University
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International
Michelle Dennedy, Chief Governance Officer, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems
Carol DiBattiste, Senior Vice President Privacy, Security, Compliance and Government Affairs, LexisNexis
Benjamin Edelman, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Scott Goss, Senior Privacy Counsel, Qualcomm
David Hoffman, Director of Security Policy and Global Privacy Officer, Intel
Marcia Hoffman, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Andy Holleman, Chief Privacy Officer, Qwest Communications
Chris Hoofnagle, Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology’s information privacy programs and senior fellow to the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic
Pamela Jones Harbour, Former Federal Trade Commissioner; Partner,Fulbright & Jaworski LLP
Nuala O’Connor Kelly, Senior Counsel, Information Governance & Privacy, GE
Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology,University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
Brian Knapp, Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Loopt
Brendon Lynch, Chief Privacy Officer, Microsoft
Terry McQuay, President, Nymity
Rena Mears, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP, Global & U.S. Leader Privacy and Data Protection
Scott Meyer, CEO, Better Advertising
Doug Miller, Executive Director, Consumer Advocacy & Privacy, AOL
Paul Ohm, Associate Professor of Law and Telecommunications, University of Colorado Law School
Adam Palmer, Law & Policy Counsel, .ORG, The Public Interest Registry
Harriet Pearson, Chief Privacy Officer & VP Regulatory Policy, IBM
MeMe Rasmussen, Senior Director, Associate General Counsel, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Ari Schwartz, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)
Paul Schwartz, Professor of Law, University of California-Berkeley School of Law
Scott Shipman, Senior Counsel, Global Privacy Practices, eBay
Daniel Solove, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Zoe Strickland, Vice President, Chief Privacy Officer, Walmart
Omar Tawakol, CEO, BlueKai
Omer Tene, Associate Professor, College of Management School of Law, Rishon Le Zion, Israel
Anne Toth, Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, Yahoo!
