The Hill reports that Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez and agency commissioners Julie Brill and Joshua Wright “all declined to endorse legislation” mandating that web companies allow users to opt out of online tracking, but are growing impatient on industry efforts for a self-regulatory solution. Recent World Wide Web Consortium talks have stalled on the issue. Ramirez said she remains “hopeful” an agreement remains possible and is not ready to call on Congress to take legislative action. Brill also remained optimistic, noting there’s “a lot of very important issues at stake.” Meanwhile, ad-serving company TruEffect—one of the first web companies to publicly say it would not serve targeted ads—has changed direction and will no longer honor Do-Not-Track requests. TruEffect’s chief marketing officer said that since most of the industry ignores the requests, it was placing itself at a competitive disadvantage.
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