A Proposed Solution

Let's be realistic, there's not much to like about most advertising in general. It can be intrusive, of poor taste, and irritating. But the reality is, most of what we take for granted as either free or nearly-free content is made possible because of the revenue generated by advertising. And the fact that advertising prevails is a testament to the simple notion that it works, perhaps in spite of itself.

Generally, users of the content generated by the Independent Web understand the value proposition associated with ads on web sites. It's typically a fair trade of advertising tolerance in exchange for content of interest or value. Unfortunately, a few unscrupulous online advertisers have taken advantage of our tolerance and caused distrust of an entire industry.

The Proposed Boucher Legislation

Representative Boucher's legislation is so restrictive, it would be similar to seeing all the stores in a shopping mall with shuttered doors and windows. Each store would be required to post a person at the door, informing you of how they process your credit card transactions and to which firms they sell your purchase history. You wouldn't be allowed inside until you agree that they can do what they want with your personal information.

We know retail stores are associating your purchase history with your name and credit information -- which will include your address and any other obtainable personal info. This is a very-deep invasion of your privacy, without your knowledge or consent.

With this in mind, it's rather disturbing to consider that there are those who would hold Internet advertising networks (which do not have your personal information) to a higher standard than those who have a wealth of your personal information.

The Proposed Solution

The majority of existing problems (and likely potential privacy concerns) with ad networks stems from the practice of "daisy-chaining" multiple networks. This means that if "Network A" has no more ads for you, they plug in "Network B" who then might use "Network C" to display a banner ad that was actually delivered by "Network G." Essentially several networks may toss around the "hot potato" of your ad impression until someone catches it.

Ad network daisy-chains result in lots of unnecessary cookies, usually delivers lower-quality ads, and sometimes the lower-tier networks at the end of the daisy-chain will have questionable quality control. This daisy-chain of handing off your impression has been at the core of privacy concerns that question what information is being shared between the involved ad networks.

So a modification to Representative Boucher's bill is rather simple, if an ad network writes a third-party cookie they must serve the ad, they cannot daisy-chain your impression to someone else. If that network must daisy-chain your impression for any reason, then they must first erase your cookie before they hand you off to another network... and then the same rules apply. Add to this that, at any time, you can visit the ad network's website and see a complete data-dump of information they've associated with the current cookie on your computer.