A coalition of privacy groups and other advocates are asking the Federal Trade Commission to probe whether online health marketers engage in deceptive practices by tracking users across the Web in order to serve them targeted ads.
"Digital marketing raises many distinct consumer protection and privacy issues, including an overall lack of transparency, accountability and personal control, which consumers should have over data collection and the various interactive applications used to track, target, and influence them online (including on mobile devices)," the groups allege in a 144-page complaint filed Tuesday. "The use of these technologies by pharmaceutical, health product, and medical information providers that directly affect the public health and welfare of consumers requires immediate action."
The complaint was brought by the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog, World Privacy Forum and U.S. Public Interest Research Group. They allege that health marketers are violating Web users' privacy by tracking them, without their knowledge, and "gathering details on their interests and activities (and now including offline databases and employing psychographic and demographic analysis), and then plying them with marketing messages precisely honed to a particular illness or condition."
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Do Big Pharma use deceptive practices? Duh!
via mediapost.com
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