Blog
What is your duty to co-operate with your regulator?
Zoe Beels
25 July 2013
Do Not Track – positive for privacy or the end of the internet as we know it?
As I mentioned in my blog ‘Targeted advertising and privacy’ last week, Do Not Track (DNT) is a system which sends out a line of code to third party websites indicating that they should disable their tracking of a user’s web browser activities. DNT prevents the gathering of data which enables tailored behavioural advertising. This system is currently voluntary meaning that a user generally has to opt in to DNT and then rely on a website to understand and respect the DNT signal its browser sends out.
17 July 2013
Targeted advertising and privacy
‘Tailored advertising’ or ‘retargeting’ allows businesses to target advertising at people who visited their site but didn’t buy anything. These type of ads are becoming more and more common, as Tory MP Gavin Barwell discovered the hard way when he sarcastically tweeted “I know Labour are short of cash but having an invitation to “date Arab girls” at top of your press release?”. Facebook and Google already offer tailored advertising and Twitter announced this month that it will soon be trialling ‘promoted tweets’. These are ads displaying content from brands and businesses in which a user has already shown interest.
5 July 2013
Data protection in mobile apps: boring, but ignore it at your peril
The range of apps for mobile devices is astounding. I doubt that there is anyone reading this that does not have at least a few apps on their smartphone whether Runkeeper, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or even the latest find love app (swipe to left if it’s a no or to the right if it’s a yes).
29 May 2012
Online privacy: how to comply with the new law on cookies
On 26 May 2012 the Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, which governs websites’ use of cookies in the UK, came into force. At the time of writing, very few websites are compliant.
27 April 2012
Privacy: Pornography - should we opt-in to opting out?
The suggestion by the cross-party ‘Independent Parliamentary Enquiry into Online Child Protection’ (the ‘Enquiry’) that Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) be obliged to implement an ‘Opt-Out’ filter for adult material has been greeted enthusiastically by several news outlets; but would implementing such a proposal really do any good?