The Federal Trade Commission, yes, the same FTC that brought the hammer down on dialer operators back in the day and beat down spam operations after CAN SPAM, is considering DO NOT TRACK regulations. This means users from the US can opt in to this list and affiliate CONTEXTUAL AD programs (at least those under the FTC's jurisdiction) cannot TRACK these users. While this applies primarily to contextual ad programs like Adsense, webmasters/sponsors should be VIGILANT against any BROAD language that might allow this framework to cover affiliate tracking as well. Given the FTC's actions against dialers, spammers, and fake optin adware in the past, they clearly aren't to be fucked with.
Bad news for affiliates?
FTC Source:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/12/privacyreport.shtm
Relevant passage:
Quote:
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The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s chief privacy policy and enforcement agency for 40 years, issued a preliminary staff report today that proposes a framework to balance the privacy interests of consumers with innovation that relies on consumer information to develop beneficial new products and services. The proposed report also suggests implementation of a “Do Not Track” mechanism – likely a persistent setting on consumers’ browsers – so consumers can choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding their online searching and browsing activities.
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Google has already responded by releasing an OPT OUT plugin for Chrome users. Source:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.c...-opt-outs.html
Quote:
Today we’re making available Keep My Opt-Outs, which enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies. It’s available as an extension for download in Chrome.
Why have we developed this feature?
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission and others have expressed interest in a “Do Not Track” mechanism that could offer users a simple way to opt out of personalized advertising. Advertising companies that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) already let you opt out of tracking for the purposes of personalizing advertisements, and many online advertisers and trade associations have also joined a major self-regulatory effort to enforce a uniform privacy icon for ads, as well as opt-out guidelines.
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Plugin is located here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...fdgfjilccfpfoe