Ad Tracking Technology Sparks New Privacy War

Inter@ctive Week, September 19. 1997

Will Roger

An effort supported by two of the world's largest advertising brokers to tailor advertising to individual Internet users may pose the greatest threat yet to the protection of privacy in cyberspace, activists said.

Under a system due for rollout in the first half of 1998, the Web advertising service Imgis Inc. will begin comparing detailed demographic information about Internet users to its stock of Web-ready ads, sending Net users only those ads Imgis determines are best matched to their interests. The company, based in Los Angeles, will use a system of "match codes" to identify individual users.

Match codes are unique identifiers used to pick information about consumers out of databases, much as banks use Social Security numbers to identify customers.

Under the plan, when Internet users visit Web sites carrying Imgis ads, participating Internet service operators would send Imgis a match code corresponding to a demographic database of 140 million consumers maintained by database marketer Metromail Corp.

Imgis would then compare users' names, addresses, estimated incomes and automobile ownership against an inventory of advertisements. Thus, a white, single 25-year-old man living in Dubuque, Iowa, could see an ad that differs from that seen by a 65-year-old American Indian woman living in Manhattan.

Yet, at the same time, the system has the ability to track the movements of any Internet user across participating sites, potentially revealing a dizzying array of confidential information, including users' reading habits, health concerns, political inclinations and religious affiliations. Imgis executives insist they won't do so, but the danger remains, critics said. ...

Rest of the story at: http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/daily/970919f.html