AT&T Takes Stand on Web Behavioral Advertising

AT&T Inc. (T) today pledged that its Internet customers will be required to give permission before information is collected and used for online behavioral advertising services.

The carrier’s chief privacy officer, Dorothy Attwood, said it's time “for all companies that track and collect data about consumer online search and Web browsing activity for the purpose of delivering behavioral advertising to step out of the cloud of invisibility to give consumers more control over whether and how their online information is collected and used.”

The pledge comes at a time while a Senate subcommittee is investigating the online advertising practices of roughly 30 carriers and Web companies, concerned about potential use of deep-packet inspection (DPI) technology to collect online user data for behavioral advertising efforts.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Attwood said, "While we have no immediate plans to offer online behavioral advertising we believe that a key dimension of any such program would be to give customers significant control over collection and use of their search and Web browsing data for online advertising purposes, by requiring their advance affirmative consent.”

Attwood emphasized that such a policy would mean that a consumer's failure to act would not result in any collection and use of that consumer's information for online behavioral advertising purposes by default.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines