Debate over data collection should be about more than opt-in versus opt-out When the U.S. Congress held its first hearings on Internet privacy in July, some of the harshest questioning was directed at the CEO of NebuAd, whose technology helps cable companies and other service providers track user's Web surfing. Russ Fradin of Adify, now part of Cox Enterprises, thinks the uproar of so-called deep-packet inspection technologies is due in part to consumers' desires not to have their non-purchasing behavior tracked. On the other hand, people have gotten used to having data collected on what they buy. For example, companies that sell through mail-order catalogs regularly share consumer data which results in "getting 50 catalogs around the holidays from companies I've never purchased anything from." Such collection isn't opt in, yet people ... [ Read more ]