The Behavioral Targeting debate continues. At the heart of the debate is the simple cookie. This is not new technology. However, this simple tracking, analytics technique has now elevated to sophisticated behavioral tracking networks. In the ultimate end game here, many would like to see the cookie crumble … others would just like you to exercise choice and clear your browser so they can clear their conscience.

Central to the debate is the balance between privacy & engagement – and the assumption that they are polar opposites. They’re not. We can have privacy AND engagement. I’ll blog more on this in the coming months.

Peter Whoriskey, Staff Writer from The Washington Post captures the ongoing debate sentiment in "FTC Wants to Know What Big Brother Knows About You."

By the way, you'll be tracked if you readThe Washington Post article. You need to register to read the article online. The profile you need to enter for access will then be used as the basis for behavioral targeting, tracking ... they use Revenue Science as well as other technologies ...

Sorry for the diversion. Back to the debate. Here’s a summary of the points of view:

• Public Interest Groups – compiling profiles of unsuspecting users is a breach of privacy

• Publisher argument – ‘free’ content could be at risk if behavioral targeting is limited … oh, and the first amendment argument (freedom of speech, freedom of press) from the Newspaper Association of America … we’re talking contextual advertisements here, right?

• Regulators – are considering laws, regulations limiting behavioral tracking

• Technologists - A cookie is just a randomly assigned number – no personally identifiable information is recorded in the cookie … err, well not in the cookie itself, unless of course you don’t count IP address as personally identifiable (at which point you get the ISPs don’t have static IP addresses argument)

• Audience, Participants – Increasingly uncomfortable about being tracked

The article reports, “A March poll by Harris Interactive showed that six in 10 people are not comfortable when Web sites use information about a person's online activity to tailor advertisements or content.” OK, that is a lot of people who are ‘spooked’.

So, my view? … The debate is larger than just behavioral targeting. Tracking is not just in the internet channel. We are ‘tracked’ with far greater sophistication when supermarkets sell my data on what I buy . Consumer data aggregators have significantly more personal data than the ‘clickstream’ inferences underlying behavioral targeting … and can be correlated to online profiling.

Capturing, tracking data in one digital venue (web-sites) is interesting … However, the debate needs to move on. Major corporations now also have the ability to cross-correlate data from multiple channels – online and offline.

IMHO, the big debate here should be around why we have differing approaches and standards on privacy and tracking depending upon the digital venue – web sites, ISPs, cell phone, cable/set top box … especially as digital convergence continues.

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