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A university study has found that two out of three Americans do not care for online tracking by advertisers. And, once they find out how the marketing folks track them on the Internet, even more object.

The study, believed to be the first conducted by someone outside the advertising industry, was carried out by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. They hired a survey company who contacted 1,000 adults who use the Internet and interviewed them for 20 minutes each.

According to the study, 66 percent of those interviewed said they did not like tailored advertising. When they told that web sites might track their behavior, another 7 percent said they did not like it. And, when asked about being tracked by other web sites, an additional 18 percent objected.

Ninety two percent of those surveyed said they would support a law that required Web sites and advertising organizations to delete information about them on request.

Marketing trade groups, who point out that advertising pays for a lot of Web content, are working on a set of practices, like notification that site visitors are being tracked, in order to avoid government regulation of their practices. Meanwhile, there have been indications that Congress and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission might be about to step in to protect consumer on line-privacy.

See story here: “Two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking

Thanks Alex.

Tom Kelchner