The punch line in all this begins with the "Do Not Track" policies that have been proposed and are being enacted by the online industry. The industry's version of "Do Not Track" apparently does not mean "Do Not Collect" – and this is what was exposed and addressed by the FTC recommendation. FTC position is that any person who opts-out of tracking should be able to do so uniformly – meaning no tracking or data collection at all.
When it comes to personal data any citizen is going to viscerally react in the negative to a report that suggests that they are being watched online and could lose control of their personal information. Privacy advocates clearly now have the upper hand in this argument, and the FTC is acting to address it by also recommending limits on the data collectors and the data brokers. Indiscriminately blocking all collection and use of all data will profoundly and negatively impact commerce as data currently drives most of the Internet-based commercial transactions.
