Whose Browsing History?

Unfortunately, we seem to have lost the ability to prevent our ISPs from selling our Internet browsing history to others without our consent. I think this will do a lot to get consumers to pay attention to the value of their attention. Nobody likes to have their property sold to others without their consent.

Ten years ago, I helped start a consumer data advocacy group called AttentionTrust.org. We build a Firefox extension called the “Attention Recorder,” which enabled people to take more control of their clickstream trails by visualizing them and sharing them with others. It seems like the main precepts of the organization might be useful to reflect on given the latest unravelling of consumer data protections:

Property: I own my browsing history and can store it securely in private.

Mobility: I can move my browsing history wherever I want, whenever I want to.

Economy: I can share my browsing history with whomever I wish, and be compensated for it.

Transparency: I can see how my browsing history is being used.

Going through the archives, here is the type of 3rd party service that AttentionTrust was designed to enable:

I wonder if the market is now ready for these kinds of services.