Yesterday (ECC) members from the Energy & Commerce Committee held hearings on behavioral on-line advertising for the wild-wild-west-era heretofore the digital age.  Among topics pertaining to ergonomic consumer census and how the on-line industry can continue to innovate in ways that are more in accordance with efforts of the 111th Congress, the hot topic of the day was that more appropriate measures were confident that voluntary rules were the adamant choice over mandates.

While path trajectory is right on course of not instilling mountains of wasted time that on-line advertisers utilize from users, it's no secret that advertising has reached levels where it's more profitable to get a "laughable fine" for breaking rules and policy.  So where should lines in the sand be drawn for inappropriate attachments (cookies) and unauthorized uses of personal information for unsponsored gain? However reality action(s) react to actual feasibility, a lot of the time rules also lack ordinary animation that represent everyday life and more than less of the time policy also needs policing itself.  

As a sidebar discussion, with business and advertising directly proffered that only the affluent can participate, the combined price for both ventures are seeming to grow more and more out of range for just your everyday hard working middle class. Especially while current job loss is making it more attractive to work for themselves than put it all on-the-line with someone else's rules and policies that make absolutely no sense where making ends meet. 

Getting back to the committee hearing subject at hand. What does it really mean when retention policy translates that web log data will be retained in identifiable form for 90 days with limited exceptions to help fight fraud, preserve systems security and meet legal obligations? And for that matter how does this new policy protect illiterate users that are mostly the elderly where they don't have the patience nor time to affiliate themselves with user education?  They just want to enjoy their retirement without the hassle of being victimized on day 1 or year 1 and that's not even mentioning identity theft that has blown many Americans right out of the water where they're left in the dirt where their only choice is going down wrong way street or swimming across the ocean to vigilante the culprits.

Due diligence may serve to confirm all material facts in regards of a sale. However, when does it also mean that care a reasonable person should take before entering in an agreement or transaction with another party going to con science and grow a conscience that the "privities rule" translates as a way of preventing unnecessary harm to either party involved in a transaction?  There is no full proof plan but these are realities that Americans live with every day and night and the “opt-out” page created (by Yahoo!) where users can easily find and exercise their choice to decline interest-based advertising is a great future thought for today but real life concerns are just plain and simply a lot more than that.

Last words in the lane:

The 57th Delegate...     
 

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