A new study from comScore and The New York Times attempts for the first time to estimate how much consumer data is transmitted to Internet companies. It finds that the five largest Web firms — Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL and MySpace — record at least 336 billion transmission events in a month, not counting their ad networks.
The analysis, conducted for The New York Times by the research firm comScore, is said to provide the first broad estimate of the amount of consumer data that is transmitted to Internet companies.
“When you start to get into the details, it’s scarier than you might suspect,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of privacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “We’re recording preferences, hopes, worries and fears.”
But that’s almost exactly the point, says Michael Galgon, Microsoft’s chief advertising strategist and Co-founder of aQuantive. “What is targeting in the long term?” he asks. “You’re getting content about things and messaging about things that are spot-on to who you are.”
David Verklin, CEO of Carat Americas, says, recent acquisitions by Google, Yahoo and MSN mean big Web companies are only getting better at collecting data.
Shouldn’t User Tracking Advertising Be Opt-In?, asks DSL Reports.
Loopt launched the first location-based advertising platform in the U.S. earlier this month. Their terms of agreement allow Loopt to collect, maintain and display a user’s location data to other Loopt friends, the carrier and third-party partners.
Every handset in the U.S. has the potential to track users. The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999, required all mobile phones to be equipped with E911 so that a phone call can be tracked in emergency situations.
