The Legality and Ethics of Internet Advertising Essay -- Exploratory E

The Legality and Ethics of Internet Advertising ABSTRACT Recently, DoubleClick.com, one of the worlds premier Internet ad firms was at the center of a Federal Trade Commission investigation on privacy. Consumer privacy advocates have charged the company with infringing on the privacy of meshingsurfers because of the aggressive operator it uses to gather maintaination for profit. This paper discusses the legal and moral issues surrounding these tactics. Were the companys aggressive tactics legally permissible? Were they ethical? Companies such as DoubleClick need to inform the websurfer that he/she is being monitored. The world of the Internet uses advertising as its central driving force. Internet start-up companies have spent millions upon millions of dollars on advertising, making Internet advertising a very lucrative business. In fact, right now the advertising market is estimated to be charge about $6.6 billion and is expected to be worth $27 billion by 2004.1 One of the leaders in the business, DoubleClick.com, has a significant market sh atomic number 18 of the industry with over 1,500 client sites. The aggressive means by which DoubleClick operates has made it the advertiser of choice by many Internet companies. The power of DoubleClick is in its usage of Internet cookies to gather information on web surfers. Every time you visit a website that is powered by DoubleClick, an Internet cookie is placed on to your web browser. The cookie helps DoubleClick track what your Internet habits are and which websites you visit most often. This information is then kept in a database that is later used by DoubleClick to target consumers with ads based on the information that it has on different user types. It is estim... ...m/NewWebstories/doubleclick_priv_2_23.htmNotes1 Frook, John E. Tactics vary in race for ad network dominance. BtoB. October 23, 2000 Vol. 85 1.2 Magill, Ken. DoubleClick Profiling Not Dead, iMarketing discussion Vol. 2 No.9 (2000)1.3 IBID.4 IBID.5 What Goes Up(The DoubleClick Story). Privacy Times. February 3,2000 <http//www.privacytimes.com/NewWebstories/doubleclick_priv_2_23.htm6 FTC Closes Investigation of DoubleClicks Privacy Practices. January 22, 2001 http//www.doubleclick.net80/us/corporate/ turn onkit/press-releases.asp?asp_object_1=& press%5Frelease%5Fid=24897 Anstead, Mark. InternetTaking a tough line on privacy- New legislation threatens internet data collection. Marketing. April 13, 2000.8 IBID.9 Hawkins, Dana Mannix, Margaret. in-person Tech. U.S. News & World Report. Vol. 129 No.13.10 IBID.