Advertisers: Broadband Privacy Rules Would 'Burden' Consumers Advertisers obviously have an immense financial interest in fighting the FCC's plan for some basic broadband privacy protections, given an informed, empowered consumer might just opt out of being tracked and sold to. But marketing organizations like the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) can't just come out and say that -- so this week the group got busy trying to claim that broadband privacy protections would create horrible, difficult "burdens" on American consumers.

In a filing with the FCC, the ANA tries to claim that broadband privacy rules aren't a good idea because consumers will suffer from "notice fatigue ." "Consumers faced with a constant barrage of choice notifications on their computers, tablets and mobile phones may refuse to opt in altogether," the ANA writes in a filing with the FCC. "In other instances, consumers could find themselves aggravated by too many notices and therefore click to opt in, just to make an opt-in pop-up box go away. Therefore, notice fatigue is likely to undermine consumer focus on the privacy choice presented." The group also tried to argue that the data being collected about consumers is all harmless, so why confuse the poor darlings by requiring they opt in? "Consumers need not be protected from the exposure of such details about their lives as their favorite color, desired flavor of ice cream or other such non-sensitive information," the ANA claims. "The Commission’s regulatory resources should not be squandered -- or onerous regulatory requirements be imposed -- on data that is of no consequence to consumers, if released." Again, most of you realize that the only thing the ANA is concerned with is money, and should the FCC's rules require that users have to opt in for some marketing, that likely means less money for them. While it has (like everything else the FCC's up to lately) been demonized as over-reach by the industries who stand to lose money, the proposal as it stands is fairly basic, simply requiring that ISPs are transparent about the data collected, and provide users with opt-out (and in a few limited cases, opt in) tools that work. The FCC's push was motivated by Verizon's use of "too damn confusing for you. The FCC's push was motivated by Verizon's use of " stealth cookies " embedded in wireless user packets used to track them around the Internet, and AT&T's approach of making opting out a luxury option users have to pay extra for . Apparently, the ad industry believes that giving you the power to avoid such behaviors would simply be







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Most recommended from 33 comments



Packeteers

Premium Member

join:2005-06-18

Forest Hills, NY ·Verizon FiOS

·Charter

Asus RT-AC3100

(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

8 recommendations Packeteers Premium Member privacy is the burden the menagerie of dns entries and browser extensions and opt-out housekeeping i have to

juggle just to keep my isp from shoving adverts and suggestions up my ass - is the burden.



can you imagine if your electrical supply company knew exactly what appliances you were

using electricity on, and could then market to you all sort of context specific consumerism?

buzz_4_20

join:2003-09-20

Biddeford, ME 7 recommendations buzz_4_20 Member At least we'd have a choice... I'd rather be burdened by an upfront choice then be burdened with all the pitfalls of advertising.



How come they don't worry about "ad fatigue"?

camper

just visiting this planet

Premium Member

join:2010-03-21

Bethel, CT 7 recommendations camper Premium Member Maybe that is the actual desired choice ..."Consumers faced with a constant barrage of choice notifications on their computers, tablets and mobile phones may refuse to opt in altogether,"...



Maybe not opting-in at all is the desired choice, and should be a significant tell-tale of how the advertisements are thought of by the owners of the devices and computers. Maybe the advertisers should concentrate on not serving advertisements that do a double duty as a means for malware distribution.

Anon6d8ca

@teksavvy.com 7 recommendations Anon6d8ca Anon Or we can just block them completely I have no obligation to watch an advertisement if it's not something I'd normally care about or am interested in.



People like me are already fatigued by watching them, and it's very kind of the AMA to notice that, but they could simply stop pushing ads at everyone if they really cared. But the end user is not what they care about, it's the money they make by sending ads.



Money is all anyone in a business cares about, us customers are not even a good second on the list.

camper

just visiting this planet

Premium Member

join:2010-03-21

Bethel, CT 5 recommendations camper Premium Member Don't require a tracking cookie in order for me to opt-out Instead, require a cookie that indicates I have opted in. NebRanger

lol, internet

join:2015-07-15

Toronto, ON 2 recommendations NebRanger Member Abusive ads This sort of complaining is why I refuse to see ads and prefer direct support (sending my own money to publishers). Stop shoving ads in my face, please.