Editorial: Limit tracking by Web companies

Does the Internet ever seem a little creepy to you?

Say you've been shopping for sneakers online, and then for days or even weeks afterward, ads for footwear keep cropping up on unrelated websites. It's as if someone's been following you around online, watching every move you make.

Someone is. A whole bevy of companies large and small is tracking your Internet activities without your knowledge or permission. And despite an occasional modest victory in the cause of privacy, the larger erosion continues.

Just last week, for instance, Facebook agreed to change what the Federal Trade Commission called "unfair and deceptive" privacy practices, such as sharing users' personal information with advertisers after promising not to do so.

Meanwhile, Facebook still tracks users all over the Web, just as Google and many other Internet companies do. Indeed, most of the websites you visit surreptitiously deposit clever bits of computer code on your computer -- and on millions of others all over the world, allowing advertisers to pitch relevant products to individuals whose interests have been revealed by their activities online. Most of us have no idea what information is being assembled about us, and no way to tell what is being done with it.

There's nothing wrong with advertising, targeted or otherwise. But there is something wrong with a system that lets unseen entities invade your computer to monitor your Internet doings without your approval. "A host of invisible cyberazzi, cookies and other data catchers follow us as we browse," in the words of FTC chief Jon Leibowitz, "reporting our every stop and action to marketing companies that in turn collect an astonishingly complete profile of our online behavior."

No matter how piously companies insist they don't link data to individuals or won't let it fall into the wrong hands, the mere existence of such elaborate and intimate information about Internet users poses a threat beyond privacy. It might someday be used in hiring and firing, for example, or in setting insurance premiums, or even to blackmail those whose Internet activities are unknown to spouses or voters.

The situation cries out for a simple "do not track" mechanism that permits Internet users, with a single click, to draw a curtain across the many prying eyes that follow each of us every day online. There are technological hurdles, but these can probably be overcome. The FTC has advocated such a system, and promising legislation to put one in place has been proposed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

An easy-to-use, comprehensive do-not-track option for consumers is important because even sophisticated users find it difficult to shield themselves from unwanted data-gathering. If you have any doubt how extensively your Internet activities are being tracked, free browser add-ons such as Ghostery can reveal -- and often block -- many of the bugs and cookies now spying on you.

Tracking is important to Internet companies because advertising is how they make money -- which in turn accounts for industry opposition to do-not-track proposals. Facebook's settlement with the FTC, for example, will clear the path for a sale of company stock to the public in the spring -- a sale that could bring in $10 billion and value the company at up to $100 billion. The premise for such a lofty valuation? A potential bonanza in ad revenue arising from Facebook's 800 million members, who've shared a great deal of information about themselves.

Internet companies have been a bright spot in the U.S. economy, but their success cannot long rely on the ability to spy on helpless Internet users. Americans need and want stronger online privacy protection. It's time their government gave it to them.