Once upon a time, there were these programs called adware.  They would package things with pretty little applications that has screen savers, or, my favorite, a weather bug, and then they would monitor your online activity and send you targeted ads.  Adware came over scrutiny though, and slowly disappeared in to non-existence,  only to make a comeback not as downloadable software, but in partnership with IP providers.

If you hadn’t heard,  yesterday the Senate talked to a bunch of major internet players:  Google…Facebook…Microsoft, there was also a little start up there called NebuAd.

From the NebuAd Website:

Through our unique technology and ISP partnerships, NebuAd combines web-wide consumer visibility with micro-targeted ads delivered at the right time in the buying cycle. This network-level approach enables behavioral targeting to finally attain its true promise of a greater scale of impressions, and greater relevance to drive increased revenue per impression.

Apparently this, much like the adware predecessor, might violate the 1986 wiretapping law.  Yikes!

The lineup was pretty heavy speaking at this thing too:

NebuAd’s Dykes; Microsoft Associate General Counsel Mike Hintze; Google Chief Privacy Counsel Jane Horvath; and Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly. Lydia Parnes, Director of the Consumer Bureau for the Federal Trade Commission; Leslie Harris, Chief Executive of the Center for Democracy & Technology; and Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

It is looking like there might be some online privacy legislation on the horizon.  However, I can’t help but think in the back of my head how useful this would be for under targeted populations.  I know, I know.  Crazy right?  But just think, ads that were actually relevant to the individual?  To the population?  If advertisers could get a better idea of their ROI when targeting specific sub-populations?  The possibilities are endless.  I can’t imagine my screen without dating site ads and flashing quiz ads…  but I think I like the sound of not having them there.

My guess is that if they do create legislation, it will make it so that users have to opt-in and the default is opt-out… (curiously, NebuAd recently added an opt-out feature on their site when they came under scrutiny) but honestly, I’m really hoping that this comes under consideration and people decide that it just might be useful.  I mean, their monitoring my activity anyway and sending targeted ads to the sites I’m supposed to like as a black person, I might as well get targeted ads in general.

On a sidenote:  I still think that facebook’s beacon is absolutely crazy and they should come down hard on that.  No one needs to know the crazy stuff their friends are doing on the internet.  That is like the cyber equivalent of going through someone’s purse or panty drawer.