FTC's new behavioral-ad guidelines

The Federal Trade Commission has just issued guidelines for behavioral advertising, a practice in which a marketer targets ads at a person or group based on their online activities, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The guidelines say Web sites must disclose to their users the data they're collecting on their activities "and give them a chance to opt out" of the data collection. "Privacy advocates immediately criticized the guidelines, which rely on the online advertising industry to regulate itself, as failing to adequately protect consumers. The four nonbinding principles laid out in the 48-page report are for industry self-regulation and "do not have the force of law," the Mercury News reports.