In addition, it will likely raise the cost to consumers of using the Internet. Much of the rhetoric surrounding the privacy issue concerns the purported power of advertising. There is a decades-old strain of thought which declares that advertising is coercive and makes people buy what they do not want. Unfortunately, many people do not fully recognize the very real benefits consumers derive from advertising. Advertising s role in a market economy is essential, and essentially benign.
Advertising lets consumers know about price and quality information.
It alerts consumers to the existence of new and improved products. Curtailing advertising limits the availability of consumer information. Despite plenty of speculation, there has been no demonstration of significant actual harm resulting from the commercial collection of personal data over the Internet. This is not to say that all data posted on the Internet are good. Quite the contrary.