This assignment will be due two weeks from tonight, Monday October 29.  For this assignment, you need to evaluate the DoubleClick controversy, looking at what the essential issues were, why they were issues, and making a determination about the ethical appropriateness of tracking for marketing purposes.  (This assignment would have been a group assignment, but that group assignment required substantial preparation in class.  The group assignment will be delayed until we can meet.  I apologize for not meeting the class tonight.)

First, read the information from the "articles" page of this site for this week (5th-6th week).   DoubleClick is a company which tracks web use behaviors of individuals using advertising sites and links, but it was also set, in February of 2000, to begin tying those web use behaviors to an individual's offline behavior patterns and selling the information to its subscribers.

This leads to some serious questions which you are asked to evaluate:
 

• What was the essential matter of the controversy involving DoubleClick?  Please also note the EPIC complaint to the FTC.  Explain the controversy carefully.
• To what extent is a company responsible for informing individuals that information about their behaviors is being collected?
• Should the default for having online behaviors tracked and pinned to personal information be an opt-out?  (In other words, should an average person have to tell a company not to do the collection, or should s/he instead have to grant explicit permission for tracking?)  Explain your answer.
• What do you believe are the most important privacy rights of an individual who uses the Internet?  Discuss the essential rights, and provide some idea of how to ensure that private information remains private.

Please keep your answer to not more than four pages.
Rough drafts read free of charge.