FTC Scrutinizes Cross-Device Tracking, Possible Privacy Issues

InformationWeek: Modern online tracking techniques make the browser cookie look "pretty wonderful," said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist and director of the Internet Architecture Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, at a Federal Trade Commission workshop on cross-device tracking.

Hall pointed to audio beacons as an example of an advertising technology that makes past privacy debates about cookies seem quaint by comparison. Audio beacons play ultrasonic sounds when an ad appears on a smartphone, computer, or TV, to communicate that event covertly to nearby devices running software designed to listen for such signals. They represent the ad industry's latest attempt to develop reliable ways to track people online.

Read article