Online Profiling

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how the extensive collection, sharing and exchange of information between online companies to create profiles of individuals has become a major concern for privacy advocates. The paper defines online profiling and looks at the three primary categories of privacy concerns and the three segments of consumers who hold different views on privacy. The paper examines the benefits and concerns and contends that consumers deserve better protection of their online privacy. The paper maintains that the solution for the above problems is to make opting-in mandatory for all online profiling. The paper shows how there is no need for businesses to violate privacy rights as they are currently doing by insisting on invasive online profiling practices.

Outline:
Introduction
Online Profiling Defined
Privacy Concerns
Public Perception
Benefits and Concerns
Self-Regulation
Compliance with Self Regulation
Conclusion and Recommendations

From the Paper:

"Online profiling may involve the collection of anonymous transactional data and it may also involve the merger of this click stream data with personally identifiable information such as name, address, telephone number, credit card number, social security number, email address, etc. (Sax, 1999) A click stream is the sequence of clicks or pages requested as a visitor explores a Web site. The click stream data collected may include information such as Web sites and Web pages visited, the time and duration of the visit, search terms typed in search engines' forms, and other queries, purchases, "click through" responses to advertisements, and the previous page visited (Mulligan, 1999)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Arnis, D. (2000, Feburary 1). Online profiling: A threat or a benefit?. http://www.netfreedom.org/news.asp?item=106
• Berman, J. (2000, May 25). Privacy online: Fair information practices in the electronic marketplace. http://www.cdt.org/testimony/000525berman.shtml
• Clickstream concerns. http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projects-00-01/cookies/index.html
• Computer law tip of the week (2000, August 14). http://www.mgrossmanlaw.com/articles/2000/online_profiling.htm
• Kerner, S.M. (2005, August 16). Consumers want personalization -- and privacy. http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3527716

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