Privacy Groups Urge Curbs on Online Targeting

A coalition of privacy groups wants Congress to force online marketing companies to get amnesia about what citizens do online, unless they get permission to remember.
At issue is the online ad industry’s increasing infatuation with behavioral ad targeting — which involves tracking a user to divine what her interests are in order to show ads targeted to those interests. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all have such technology, as does Facebook and dozens of ad networks you have never heard of.
On Tuesday, representatives from a range of privacy and consumer protection groups asked the House Commerce Committee to prohibit online marketers from collecting sensitive data, require them to inform users what the data is being collected for and give individuals the right to see data collected about them.
Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who held hearings in front of his Communications, Technology and the Internet subcommittee, is expected to introduce a bill this fall.

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Privacy Groups Urge Curbs on Online Targeting | Epicenter | Wired.com

One thing I believe about the internet - for better or for worse (it's a matter of opinion, really) - is that you can't limit the internet. This sounds like a fight not worth trying to win. If it's not the big companies doing it because they can't get the big guys off their backs, then it's a million smaller ones doing it because the big guys don't feel like chasing them around. Enforcing laws on the internet is like enforcing laws in outer space. Good luck!

Me and my wife ere looking at garden sheds the other day.
Since then most of the adverts that come with web pages were for garden sheds.
There are things you can do to stop this, such as clear out the cookies and use better security but at the end of the day you will not be able to stop people looking at what you are doing online.