Advertising supports most of the free content people enjoy viewing online. Allowing cookies and online advertising to personalize services to your browser can be a great benefit to the websites you support, by helping them earn revenue, and to you by helping ensure that you don't see too much repetition or irrelevant advertising while you surf the web. To read more about the value of advertising, you can check out the following:

• The World Federation of Advertisers' website explaining the values of advertising: http://www.valueofadvertising.org/home.php
• "Making ads more interesting," from the Google policy blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
• "I am the Long Tail" is a video montage produced by the IAB (US) where the operators of small websites sent in video footage discussing why advertising is important for their websites. It is available at http://iamthelongtail.com/.

On Cookies

Whazit? What are http cookies? How are they used? What controls do I have in my browser to set rules for the kinds of cookies that are set on my computer? This and much more, as you learn about cookies via the following links:

• David Whalen's "Unofficial Cookie FAQ Version 2.6" is chock full of information and explanations: http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/
• The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Europe's Cookie resources page: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/
• The Harvard Berkman Center's Cookie Crumble Contest: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cookiecontest/ (These videos are also available on the right panel of this page)
• A simple description on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
• There are in-depth books written on the topic, this one by Simon St. Laurent: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
• Firefox offers a plugin specific to targeted advertising cookies, developed by Christopher Soghoian: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11073

Wikis

These entries contain simple, user-generated and edited explanations of important vocabulary and concepts that may be of interest:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
• http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/
  Online_Advertising
• http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/
  Privacy_Guidelines

Research

The more learning gained from academia and via research and surveys, the better we all understand how consumers are interacting online, and what people prefer:

• http://www.the-cma.org/?WCE=C=47|K=229177
  
• http://www.truste.org/webinars/bt/bt_slides.pdf
  
• http://www.kpmg.co.uk/news/detail.cfm?pr=3390
  
• http://www.emarketer.com/Articles.aspx
  
• http://www.bizreport.com/
  
• http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/
  
• http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=429500
  

From our membership:

• AOL's Privacy Blog -http://www.privacygourmet.com/
• AudienceScience consumer page http://www.audiencescience.com/consumers.asp; Video on the future of BT - http://audiencescience.com/videos/2020_Future.asp; AudienceScience audience-based advertising www.audiencescience.com/consumer/education.asp.
• Google Privacy Center - http://www.google.com/privacy.html; opt-out plugin http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/
• Microsoft Privacy Resource Center - http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/
  privacy/resources.mspx
• Yahoo! FAQs on relevant advertising http://info.yahoo.com/relevantads/faq/

On Regulation, Self-Regulation & Accountability

Online privacy and behavioral advertising are hot topics! Read what regulators and business groups are thinking about these issues:

From regulators:

• The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has been actively discussing online privacy and behavioral advertising: http://ftc.gov/bcp/consumer.shtm; http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/02/behavad.shtm;
• Recent speech of the European Union's consumer commissioner Meglena Kuneva:http://europa.eu/

From business groups, technologists, and self-regulatory bodies:

• The NAI's updated Self-Regulatory Code of Conduct for Online Behavioral Advertising: http://networkadvertising.org/
• The IAB UK's Good Practice Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising: http://www.iabuk.net/
• The IAB (U.S.), DMA, ANA and AAAA announcement on self-regulatory initiatives: http://www.iab.net/insights_research/
• TRUSTe on behavioral advertising: http://www.truste.com/; http://www.truste.com/about/bt_overview.php
• ESRB's privacy resources: http://www.esrb.org/privacy/resources.jsp
• CDT's Guide to Behavioral Advertising: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/targeting/
• PrivacyChoice.org's FAQ's and choice plugin: http://privacychoice.org/