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          Ever since the dawn of the internet advertisers have taken themselves to a new level. Although sometimes convenient that they will offer products to your liking, it is never fun to have to delete hundreds of timeshare emails just because you clicked on a weekend getaway advertisement. I understand that on one side of the coin advertisers look to increase sales by offering the consumer what they think they want; however, by doing this consumers are not given a fair chance to freely decide for themselves. It seems like nowadays online marketplaces will either recommend a product or show similar products based on past customer purchases.  So where do we draw the line?

Reasonably speaking, a reasonable line has recently been drawn. According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) preliminary report there are three primary recommendations:

(1) Privacy by design      

(2) Simplified choice for consumers on how their data is handled

(3) Greater transparency for consumers on privacy practices

So what does this mean and how is it enforced?

          Simply put it asks website administers and advertisers to provide us with more security when dealing with our personal data and offer us a simpler overview of the privacy agreements we always agree to but never read.  However, there are no recommendations on how to enforce these regulations. The main purpose of the FTC is to prevent fraudulent and unfair business practices, but if they do not enforce their new recommendations all it will create is a false sense of security. 

          I think although this is still a legally pointless step, it is still a step in the right direction. There is the coming trend of security and privacy above all, that future advertisers will soon have to adjust to. With the plethora of information available online, consumers should have the ability to search for their own products and not be manipulated. I think providing the option to either track or not track recent purchases will give consumers an advantage in the never ending war between advertising spending and consumer buying. Hopefully this will begin a trend worldwide.