According to a recent survey conducted by professors at the University of California, Berkeley and at the University of Pennsylvania, approximately two-thirds of Americans object to the having advertisers track their online behavior. In addition, the researchers found that this number increases once people learn more about the various methods that advertisers are using to monitor their online activities.

This study, which is thought to be the first independent telephone study to represent people around the country, is on a topic that has become very hot within many political arenas. While privacy advocates are pressuring the Federal Trade Commission and Congress to pull the reigns in on advertisers who engage in online tracking, companies claim these tactics are an essential component for successfully marketing their products and services.

So far, the debate has caught the attention of at least two representatives. Representative Rick Boucher, who is a Democrat from Virginia, has expressed his intention to introduce new privacy legislation. Similarly, David Vladeck, who is the head of consumer protection for the Federal Trade Commission, has also expressed a desire to take a closer look at privacy issues.

Of course, marketers aren’t too happy about the possibility of change being on the horizon and many claim that they use their marketing strategies as a means of supporting the free content they provide on the Internet. As such, many are proposing that they simply provide a clear notice to consumers whenever they are being tracked rather than doing away with the tracking altogether.

The results of the survey conducted by professors at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania could potentially have a significant impact on the types of policies that are ultimately developed.

“This research is going to ignite an intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic on what the appropriate policy should be,” said Jeffrey Chester, who is the executive director of a privacy group known as Center for Digital Democracy.

In order to conduct this study, the professors hired a survey company to conduct 20 minute interview 1,000 Internet users of adult age. The respondents were first asked to say whether or not they wanted websites to provide them with discounts that were tailored to their individual interests. 66% of the respondents were not interested in these discounts, but this number grew even higher as the respondents learned more about how the information was to be gathered. When told that their actions would be followed while on a company’s website as well as on other websites, an additional 7% said it was not OK to track their actions while on the company’s site. Another 18% said it was not OK when they were on other websites and another 20% said it was not OK for them to be tracked while offline.

When asked about receiving customized discounts as well as customized news, 51% said that receiving tailored discounts was OK while 58% felt receiving customized news was just fine. Interestingly, the researchers did not find that responses to be much different when comparing different age groups.
“We sometimes think that the younger adults in the United States don’t care about this stuff, and I would suggest that’s an exaggeration,” said Joseph Turow, who is the lead author of the study and is a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Despite the fact that the respondents appeared to be quite concerned about protecting their privacy, the researchers also found that most of them were not very knowledgeable about privacy laws. In fact, after asking nine true or false questions about privacy laws, the researchers found that there was only one question on which more than half of the participants answered correctly.

The respondents were also asked about their opinions regarding current tracking laws and if they felt there should be a law in place giving people the right to know everything that is being tracked about them online. 69% of the respondents said yes, while 92% felt there should be a law in place requiring websites and advertisers to delete the information they have upon the request of the individual.

“I don’t think that behavioral targeting is something that we should eliminate, but I do think that we’re at a cusp of a new era, and the kinds of information that companies share and have today is nothing like we’ll see 10 years from now,” said Professor Turow.