Who's Afraid of the Cookie Monster?

Matt Welch's post about the Federal Trade Commission's efforts to save consumers from nosy marketers reminded me of a story The New York Times ran last week about the tailoring of online advertising:

Not only will people see customized advertising, they will see different versions of Web sites from other consumers and even receive different discount offers while shopping—all based on information from their offline history. Two women in adjoining offices could go to the same cosmetic site, but one might see a $300 Missoni perfume, the other the house-brand lipstick on sale for $2.

Scary stuff? When it comes to privacy, I have to admit, I worry more about, say, the government's ability to seize people's computers at the border, eavesdrop on telephone conversations without warrants, spy on people from low-flying aircraft, and manufacture probable cause for car searches with the help of cooperative canines. But that's just me. The Times assures me that other people find eager, well-informed salesmen creepy too:

Consumer advocates say such unseen tracking [linking Web users to information about their spending habits] is troubling. On the old Internet, nobody knew you were a dog. On the new targeted Internet, they now know what kind of dog you are, your favorite leash color, the last time you had fleas and the date you were neutered.

"The industry's love affair with persistent cookies has made it virtually impossible for users to go online without being tracked and profiled," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in an e-mail message….

Paul M. Schwartz, a law professor and privacy expert at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, said the unwitting participation by consumers makes online marketing different from offline.

"Interactive media really gets into this creepy Orwellian thing, where it's a record of our thoughts on the way to decision-making," he said. "We're like the data-input clerks now for the industry."

Yet the average consumer does not seem to be very worried about this situation (emphasis added):

Consumers can avoid cookie-based tracking by deleting cookies from their computers or setting their browsers not to accept cookies. But few do, and privacy advocates say it is easy for companies to add cookies without users noticing.

The Web has introduced new wrinkles to targeted marketing, but it has not changed the fundamental issues. Way back in 1992—in a Reason article that asked, "Do strangers with computers know too much about you?"—I argued that when alleged invasions of privacy do not involve the coercive power of the state, they should be prohibited only if they entail violations of contract or property rights. One implication of that argument is that you do not "own" information about yourself that you voluntarily disclose without conditions. As an online shopper interviewed by the Times puts it, "Every time you put out information about yourself—people have got to understand—it's going to be collected by somebody."