From our president

This monthly letter to subscribers from Consumer Reports President Jim Guest highlights the critical consumer issues behind our current reports. See archived letters.

What’s mined is yours

There's no such thing as coincidence online. You bought a grill last week and ads for T-bones keep popping up; you researched heartburn and now you're dodging cyberpitches for antacids.

Technology gives companies the ability to track your online movements like never before, and a dearth of legal limits gives them the right.

Consumers are not pleased. In a May Consumer Reports poll, 82 percent of respondents said they're at least somewhat concerned that companies they do business with online are sharing or selling their personal information without asking permission. And nearly two-thirds agree completely that there should be a single, central place where they can opt out of Internet tracking permanently.

Privacy vs. profit

Many companies do manage consumer information responsibly. But data mining is extremely profitable, and voluntary industry self-regulation isn't working for consumers.

So we're relieved that Congress is considering bills that would set comprehensive, standardized, enforceable privacy rules to spell out how companies are permitted to collect, maintain, use, and share consumer information.

Besides giving consumers their say over what information is collected and where it goes, the laws would also give them the ability to easily opt out of certain forms of online tracking. Some browser-based systems already allow that, but data collectors do not, at this point, have to respect consumers' choices. We think they should.

These crucial laws would give some transparency to an opaque practice that confounds even Internet experts. And they would let consumers decide whether they want their Internet habits and history to be tracked and traded.

Jim Guest
President