Privacy groups want Congressional action on behavioral ads

Privacy and consumer groups have had enough with Internet companies' promises of self-regulation and want Congress to pass legislation to protect privacy. The coalition - including the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and U.S. Public Interest Research Group - offered some 13 pages of proposed changes, InfoWeek reports.

Here's John Simpson, a project director at Consumer Watchdog: "In almost any industry, self-regulation does not work. We've seen it in the capital markets and we've seen it online."

For its part Google acknowledges the tensions, although it believes its "interest-based advertising" ultimately provide great value.

"On the one hand, well-tailored ads benefit consumers, advertisers, and publishers alike," said Nicole Wong, Google's deputy general counsel, in a blog post in March. "On the other hand, the industry has long struggled with how to deliver relevant ads while respecting users' privacy."

The privacy groups say they don't want to stop such advertising but they think Congress needs to regulate the products.

"The basic idea behind all of these documents is we want consumers to be able to take advantage of all of these technologies without these technologies taking advantage of the consumers," said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. "And right now that balance is not there."