Matthew Lasar reports:
Imagine an Internet in which every website that uses behavioral advertising has to get your up-front permission to do so—make that double for login-account-informed ads, and triple if the site sells your data to third-party applications.
You might think that something like this would be a pretty cool set up, privacy-wise. So does Congressmember Rick Boucher (D-VA), who has been talking about legislation in this area for almost a year now now.
[…]
Great idea? Perhaps not for Google, two of whose top policy people just released a position paper warning of “opt-in dystopias”—environments in which cumbersome opt-in requirements could discourage users from engaging socially on useful sites, push service providers to over-collect user data at the point of consent, and turn the ‘Net into landscapes of “walled gardens” in which consumers are reluctant and even afraid to explore new services. Such regulations could even help percolate the next extremist social moment.
Read more on Ars Technica.