Expanding on comments he made recently to The Wall Street Journal, Alan Chapell, CIPP/US, president of Chapell & Associates, argues in an AdExchanger column that Do Not Track (DNT) as a privacy-protective tool “helps a few big companies without doing much for privacy.” While DNT may lead consumers to believe that it will stop the online collection of data, Chapell notes that it would not stop data collection from Google+ buttons or Facebook widgets and the like, or sites from working with data brokers to target ads. “In other words,” he writes, “Do Not Track does not stop tracking.” However, smaller companies who don’t have the market penetration to get people to add their widgets or budgets to pay brokers are left out in the cold. In the end, he argues, “Do Not Track actually creates a perverse set of outcomes, favoring big companies over small with little privacy benefit.” Editor’s Note: The Privacy Advisor recently covered how CalOPPA’s amendment may affect DNT.
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