This rule will prevent the sharing of user information between enterprises belonging to the same parent company

According to some privacy protection groups, Yahoo, Microsoft and other companies involved in the Internet are discussing a new regulation that will prevent the sharing of user information among companies that belong to the same parent company.

For example, under this provision, no user data should be shared between the Berkshire Hathaway Company's Candies and Geico. Internet companies said the rules would overturn existing business practices, bringing huge costs and damaging the interests of Internet advertisers and customers.

This rule was organized by the Open-source software project, the Privacy Protection Group Electronic Frontier Foundation (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and Stanford University researcher Jonathan Meyers (Jonathan Mayer) in the standard-setting organization Web Consortium (World Wide Web Consortium).

At the meeting, Yahoo, Microsoft and the Digital Advertising Alliance (Digital advertising Alliance) presented their own counterpart proposals. They claim that their proposals can protect consumers ' privacy while not bringing more costs or restrictions to the business. The Digital Advertising Alliance is a coalition of media and marketing trade associations in the United States, including Disney, Google, GE and so on.

Participants from both sides of the Internet industry and privacy protection group said they hoped to reach an agreement early this summer, but the details would take longer. U.S. President Barack Obama and the Federal Trade Commission have supported the "Do Not track" policy, asking both sides to agree before Congress takes action.

Whichever policy is finalized will have an important impact on the business. Internet advertising is huge and complex, involving the entire economic sector. Zenith Optimedia estimates that the Internet advertising market is 72 billion dollars, with large companies often using a display ad market of $25 billion.

Disagreement

Shane Velly Shane Wiley, vice president of Yahoo Privacy and data management, said many companies objected to "digging alone" user data, in part because it required a restructuring of IT infrastructure and high costs. Waley with policy experts from companies such as Microsoft and Google. "This requires a complete division of the backend," says Waley. Each of the backend changes, every data system, every script, all the reporting system, is not unaffected. ”

According to Mozilla's proposal, companies can circumvent this rule, but it will be very expensive. Enterprises can share user data among different business units to avoid costly it restructuring, but use brand information to provide users with a clear introduction to each shareholding company and ownership structure. For example, the Wall Street Journal, which is affiliated with News Corp, can share data with Fox News, as long as the websites of the two sides explicitly introduce the relationship between the two companies through branding.

While the World Wide Web Consortium's meeting is trying to reach an agreement, the atmosphere of the conference is like a yoga class. After each proposal was presented, participants were asked if they supported it. "This is to understand the position of a group without people raising their hands or explanations," said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog, a consumer protection group. "Simpson supported the Mozilla proposal.

The proposal by Apple on behalf of David Singh David Singer has hardly resonated, and privacy advocates and other industry representatives disagree. The proposal suggested that the distinction between the enterprise visited by the user and that of the third party advertiser should be eliminated and that any data that could be collected by either party should be limited. Apple declined to comment.

Yahoo offers

Mozilla and Yahoo's proposals have received the most support. Yahoo's proposal is quite different from the Mozilla proposal, which it believes should allow companies to share data among subsidiaries, even if the user clicks on the "Do Not track" button.

"The definition of subsidiaries has a long history and is an important part of corporate law," Waley said. At the same time, Yahoo's proposal also prohibits advertisers from tracking and creating user data.

Privacy advocates say this is not enough. They argue that the enterprise structure is so complex that users simply don't know who is getting their data. "Users need to be met, and ordinary users simply don't know the boundaries between companies," says Simpson. ”

Another key point: Waley that there should be an exception to "Do not track", allowing marketers to record the number of times a user sees an ad. Waley said the same advertisement appeared in front of the same user, rather than providing new advertising, which would annoy users and hurt businesses.

"If you log on to the Yahoo site and see the same ad over and over again, you may get bored with Yahoo, or you may turn off the tracking button," says Waley. The "Do not track" rule has also brought another problem for internet companies such as Yahoo, because it is hard to prove that they have effectively fulfilled the agreement with advertisers, so that the number of users browsing the ads to a certain number.

Simpson, who calls for privacy, said he recognised the divergence and was open to exceptions such as limiting marketers ' time to keep ads browsing data. He said: "I would like to explore different proposals on how to achieve the goal." But so far, I have not seen such a proposal. ”