11/2/2000

"Internet users are very concerned about their activities on the net being tracked."

"A Roy Morgan survey, published in August '99, found that "The majority of Australians (56 percent) are worried about invasion of privacy issues created by new information technologies..."

"To its credit, DoubleClick does have a comprehensive privacy policy on its own website. However, sites where DoubleClick technology is used may not give adequate notice to the user that this technology is being employed to track their activities, build a database of their shopping preferences and deliver personalised advertising.

"I am concerned that in some circumstances net users may not be aware that information about them is being collected. This limits the ability net users have to control what happens to the information collected about them.

"Users can certainly take steps to protect themselves by setting up their browser to reject cookies or by using appropriate software. However, if users must take such steps to protect their personal information it would seem that they are unlikely to trust net commerce sites and net advertisers sufficiently to take part in Internet commerce.

"For Internet commerce to reach its full potential, net users must trust net commerce companies and advertisers to respect their privacy. Given the relatively low level of consumer confidence in on-line commerce it's reasonable to assume that net commerce companies have not yet engendered a sufficient level of trust in their privacy practices."

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