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The advertising industry continues to mount a strong attack on the Do Not Track concept for protecting online privacy. As my colleague Chris Calabrese described last week, the industry threw an 鈥渆pic hissy fit鈥� (in the of Ed Bott at ZDNet) over Microsoft鈥檚 laudable decision to turn on Do Not Track by default in Internet Explorer.

Now the industry is going even more strongly on the offensive against Do Not Track. As Bott , an ad industry representative in the WC3 standards-setting group for Do Not Track tried to propose that 鈥淢arketing should be added to the list of 鈥楶ermitted Uses for Third Parties and Service Providers.鈥欌�� In short, the representative wanted the WC3 create an exception to their rules that renders the entire effort utterly meaningless. Of course, that is exactly what the online ad industry would like鈥攖hey previously proposed that Do Not Track be defined to mean not that companies couldn鈥檛 track consumers, just that they would not serve them ads that reveal that tracking.

In response to pushback over this latest proposal, the industry representative issued this ringing defense of marketing:

Marketing fuels the world. It is as American as apple pie and delivers relevant advertising to consumers about products they will be interested at a time they are interested. DNT should permit it as one of the most important values of civil society. Its byproduct also furthers democracy, free speech, and 鈥� most importantly in these times 鈥� JOBS. It is as critical to society 鈥� and the economy 鈥� as fraud prevention and IP protection and should be treated the same way.

To understand at a glance what is wrong with that statement, simply replace the first word, 鈥淢arketing,鈥� with 鈥淪pying on consumers鈥� internet activity鈥� and read it again. But let鈥檚 break it down further:

1. Obviously companies need to communicate about their products and services. That鈥檚 what marketing is, and it is socially valuable.
2. And of course, the more accurately companies can target those communications, the more efficient it will be for them.
3. But it does not follow from those two facts that allowing companies to engage in ever-more-intrusive commercial spying is socially valuable. There鈥檚 marketing, and there鈥檚 spying to target marketing. I may be secretly suffering from Disease X, but that does not mean it is in my interest to allow advertising companies to spy on my web surfing, and intrude on my personal life, in order to glean that fact (as well as many others) and send me advertisements for Disease X treatments.

The above statement also raises another question: if spying is such a glorious, valuable activity, which will bring so many benefits to so many people, then why is the advertising industry worried? Won鈥檛 people naturally gravitate toward something that brings them benefits? Won鈥檛 they turn off Do Not Track鈥攅ven if Microsoft turns it on by default? Doesn鈥檛 the ad industry believe in the free market?

Of course the answer is that people do not benefit from being spied upon, and neither does society as a whole from allowing it. Just this week, yet another study has been released showing that consumers by wide margins do not want to be tracked online (here is the , and New York Times of it).

I suppose a tracking supporter could argue that people simply do not recognize their own self-interest鈥攖hat they are victims of some ironic form of false consciousness, or that untrammeled commercial spying produces larger, aggregate benefits for society even if people don鈥檛 like it, and therefore that people should not be given control over who observes their online activities.

Certainly, there is no guarantee that aggregations of individuals鈥� decisions on a micro level鈥攁ka free markets鈥攚ill produce the public good on a macro level. But here we鈥檙e not talking about consumers鈥� decisions about paper or plastic, Coke or Pepsi, Wal-Mart or the shop in the old downtown. We鈥檙e talking about decisions that are close to the core of human freedom, psychological well-being, and democratic society鈥攖he decision to seek privacy. People want that privacy, and they deserve to have it.