Among the comments filed at the FTC for its staff privacy principles proceeding was one submitted by CMOR (the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research). CMOR, whose motto is “shielding the profession” wants the FTC to make certain that any privacy policy protecting consumers doesn’t restrain the activities of its members. A huge infrastructure of online market research has emerged–tracking our online behaviors and attitudes. The trade group offer’s an incredible self-serving defense of their practices, all so they can push the boundaries of targeted digital marketing. Here are some excerpts from CMOR’s filing:
“…much of the FTC’s specific proposals for self-regulation of online behavioral tracking could have significant negative consequences for the survey and opinion research profession, and strangle many possible new methods of research – methods that could better serve consumer choice and privacy than current methods – before they’ve even been conceived…CMOR notes that research is a multi- million driver of the private economy – and that U.S. government agencies like the FTC are, as a group, the single largest purchaser/user of research from the survey and opinion research profession. CMOR also notes that online behavioral tracking could be a form of
research particularly well-suited to the needs of non-profit entities, political activists, and for-profit businesses that are small or serve niche markets and interests. These parties have an even greater need than most to drill down to small, difficult-to-pinpoint segments of the population. Such research could have profoundly positive benefits for consumers and citizens and such public good is worth preserving…As recently stated by Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer for the research firm ComScore, researchers must “push the limits of data mining and data base integration and artificial intelligence, in the interest of deploying information technology to meet the needs of people. At the same time, it is incumbent upon us to zealously guard the privacy of the consumers whose lives we touch, even tangentially. I do not believe these two goals are paradoxical.”
CMOR and ComScore may try to convince the FTC to somehow believe that expanding the limits of data mining research will further privacy. But much of the research is about extending the power of micro-targeting in order to create new attitudes and behaviors in individuals (inc. children and adolescents). Researchers can’t be given a free pass to push the limits of data mining in the digital era.