A majority of Canadians are concerned enough about being tracked on-line that they would support the creation of a national “Do Not Track List”, a new report has found.

A “Do Not Track List” for Canada?, written by Janet Lo, legal counsel for the Ottawa-based Public Interest Advocacy Centre, notes that people who signed up for such a list would not have data about their on-line activities “collected, used, or disclosed”.

The research firm Environics conducted an April survey of 1,570 Canadians for the October report, which was produced with funding from Industry Canada and released yesterday (December 3).

“The majority of respondents (54%) strongly supported the creation of a “Do Not Track List”, and an additional 27% of respondents somewhat supported a “Do Not Track List”, compared to 8% who somewhat opposed and 10% who strongly opposed the List,” the report states.

The report notes that 49 percent of consumers are “not at all comfortable” and 25 percent are “not very comfortable” with on-line tracking for the purposes of targeted advertising.

However, a Do Not Track List would face serious challenges, according to the report.

For one thing, it would be difficult to implement without assigning Internet users a unique identifier.

Furthermore, industry would lobby the government to create loopholes for businesses, the report says.

“Implementing a ”˜Do Not Track List’ in Canada would give Canadian consumers better control over their personal information while they surf the internet,” it states. “However, while a ”˜Do Not Track List’ would certainly be a step to better protection for consumers from online tracking, it cannot be expected to provide holistic or foolproof consumer protection, especially given the logistical and technical barriers to effective implementation.”

A voluntary industry code would almost certainly be “ineffective” and therefore is not the answer, according to the report.

It concludes that Canada’s privacy commissioner should review existing legislation and set out clear guidelines for Web site operators.

“Enforceable guidelines would better fit within the regulatory framework and would likely provide consumers with more effective and holistic privacy protection than a ”˜Do Not Track List,’” the report states.

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