The Legality and Ethics of Internet AdvertisingSUMMARY: Recently, DoubleClick.com, one of the world's leading Internet advertising companies, has been at the center of a Federal Trade Commission privacy investigation. Consumer privacy advocates have accused the company of violating Internet users' privacy because of the aggressive means it uses to collect data for profit. This article addresses the legal and moral questions surrounding these tactics. Were the company's aggressive tactics legally permitted? Were they ethical? Companies such as DoubleClick must inform the Internet user that they are being monitored. The Internet world uses advertising as its central engine. Internet start-ups have spent millions and millions of dollars on advertising, making Internet advertising a very lucrative business. In fact, at present, the advertising market is estimated at approximately $6.6 billion and is expected to reach $27 billion by 2004.1 One of the industry leaders, DoubleClick.com, has a share major market player in the sector with more than 1,500 customers. sites. The aggressive means by which DoubleClick operates have made it the advertiser of choice by many Internet companies. The power of DoubleClick lies in its use of Internet “cookies” to collect information about Internet users. Each time you visit a website powered by DoubleClick, an Internet cookie is placed on your web browser. The cookie helps DoubleClick track your Internet habits and the websites you visit most often. This information is then stored in a database which is then used by DoubleClick to target consumers with ads based on the information it has about different types of users. It is estimated...... middle of document ......m/NewWebstories/doubleclick_priv_2_23.htmNotes:1 Frook, John E. "Tactics vary in the race for ad network dominance." BtoB. October 23, 2000 Vol. 85:1.2 Magill, Ken. “DoubleClick: Profiling Is Not Dead,” iMarketing News Vol.2 No.9 (2000):1.3 IBID.4 IBID.5 “What’s Happening… (The DoubleClick Story). » Privacy time. February 3, 2000 6 “FTC closes investigation into DoubleClick's privacy practices. » January 22, 2001 http://www.doubleclick.net:80/us/corporate/presskit/press-releases.asp?asp_object_1=& press%5Frelease%5Fid=24897 Anstead, Mark. “Internet: Taking a hard line on privacy – New legislation threatens data collection on the Internet. » Marketing. April 13, 2000.8 IBID.9 Hawkins, Dana; Mannix, Marguerite. Personal technology. US News & World Report. Flight. 129 n°13.10 IBID.