 Welcome to Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV. For Tuesday, October 16, 2012, I'm Kristen Folletti. Yesterday, an online advertising trade group launched a campaign to fight back against accusations that its tactics invade consumer privacy. Authorities in Europe are targeting Google's privacy policy and calling for changes to be made in how Google manages user data. And the FBI has issued a mobile malware warning. Should your phone be in danger? Here to discuss how your privacy is being managed and to provide his breaking analysis is SiliconANGLE contributing editor John Casaretto. Welcome, John. Good morning. Yesterday, the Direct Marketing Association launched an initiative that will provide at least $1 million to fund lobbying efforts, education, and research for data-driven marketing. So can you tell us what is the goal of the program? Well, yeah, lobbying is kind of the name of the game nowadays, and they've got this mission where they want to get the message out about data-driven marketing and how it creates value to people that are consumers and how it provides for a better internet in their eyes. So what they're looking to do is take to attack and counter regulation and enforcement that really is against what they're seeking. And what they're saying is that innovation to knock down some of that unfavorable media attention and talk about the many ways that those, that tracking and the data-driven marketing has really enhanced the internet for the most part. Many online ads install tracking files on computers. Can you explain what tracking files are and how advertisers use them? Yeah, absolutely. So those files, they're just, they're little files basically that have been around since the beginning of browsing for the most part. And what they do is they monitor how you're using the internet, what you're looking at, and then they're able to tailor advertising that they present to you based on your history, the things that you looked at. Ideally, there's not a lot of identity in there. That's going to be a continuing issue. But for the most part, what you see is this behavior that they use that information to give you the best advertising possible. What position do privacy groups, lawmakers, and regulators take when it comes to tracking? Well, they definitely are mostly looking for restrictions on those things, the concerns about privacy revolve around things that might identify who you are for, to set the record on that, cookies and those types of tracking files that are in browsers and different applications and things like that. It's going to be for the most part anonymous, like it treats people as chunks, kind of a statistical look at groups of people as opposed to individual, John is looking at this, Christian is doing this, it's supposed to be anonymous, but there's always concerns around that. On the other side, what do advertisers argue for when it comes to tracking? Well, they're saying that it's critical to produce more relevant ads, to give them better targets, to provide a better service altogether for those services, those internet ads that support web pages which are basically free. The Federal Trade Commission has pushed for a feature that would allow users to opt out of online tracking, but negotiations over such a feature have stalled. Does a do not track button the answer here? Well, typically modern browsers have got a very fast way of removing cookies that you've picked up or tracking files that you've picked up, but most people aren't. It's not like something that's quick or installed by default. I just don't think that, I'm on the side of advertising, to be honest with you, I mean, it is a business and they do need a way of tracking, and I think that going forward, we're going to require to sustain the ability to see what users' behavior is online. Today, France's Data Protection Authority, known as the CNIL, has published a list of recommendations for Google in the area of user privacy. Google has three to four months to comply with these recommendations, otherwise it could face sanctions. However, as it stands right now, there are no legal obligations for Google to actually change its privacy policy. So do you think Google should make a change here? You know, they may. They'll make some concessions, I believe, I mean, it is a huge market for them. So the sanctions, again, it's not very clear whether they would actually end up having to pay those things, but there is a number of fields here that come into play from privacy to the different, a little bit of the same issue. In fact, Europe has got a number of existing regulations that come into play, and that's the reason behind the big, the uproar at this point. So let's go back to the sanctions for a second. What is Google being scrutinized over? Can you summarize that for us? Yeah. They basically have changed their privacy policy, and some of the changes have basically been written in such a way that users cannot opt out. So that, again, has run afoul of some regional privacy elements that they have in place and policies that they have in different areas and things like that. So they're asking Google to comply, and a lot of those have to do with basically a way of opting out of that policy and actually giving more disclosure within Google when they give the policy out. European authorities have gone almost as far as to say that Google is acting illegally. Do you feel that they're acting illegally when it comes to how they manage their privacy? No. I think that's a big extreme, a bit of rhetoric there. I mean, obviously, there are a number of bodies that have different regulations and things like that. So it's hard to say what's technically legal and illegal, but there is a written privacy policy. It's just a matter of the stipulations that are in that, and for the most part, more disclosure is what they're after. That's credit card information is included, personal location data, those types of things. Those are the concerns that are basically being put forward. Now the recommendations that have been outlined for Google, many of them outline how Google collects data for the purpose of advertising. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Well, yeah. Again, it's a little bit of that same thing we just talked about. Google does a lot of the same tracking for advertising, and that's their main business. So the data that they're trying to isolate and analyze and use supposedly anonymously basically is for the purposes of better advertising for their advertisers, for their users. And all these things, it's interesting that a policy can kind of dictate how their business really has the best chance of success. The Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as the IC3, a task force that includes the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, has issued a mobile malware warning late last week. The warning was issued on Friday. Do we know why or is this due to a particular threat outbreak? You know, that was the interesting thing. There was really no immediate threat that really kind of prompted this, so the short answer is no. But that doesn't necessarily eliminate the consistent and persistent environment of threats that are out there, particularly on mobile handsets and malware that affects these things. The introduction of the warning states the IC3 has been made aware of various malware attacking Android operating systems for mobile devices. So what do we know about that type of malware and what kind of damage could it cause to your mobile device? Well, there are a number of, again, there are any number of malware threats out there in the environment. I think two of the most prevalent at this time is like a lose phone. It's like a Trojan horse, and that's the kind of thing that can steal information. And there's Finn Fisher. You know, that's actually not just an Android-specific malware. So a lot of it has to do with information stealing and those kinds of things. So those seem to be the biggest concerns in malware on the mobile devices nowadays. So what are some steps users can take to avoid mobile malware? Well, yeah, and it's a good lesson, even though this is European and that there's the element of the FBI that is involved here as well at the same time. But it's all about user behaviors. It's knowing the features of your device, knowing how to use the encryption when required and it's practical, just like when you use your desktop and you scan things before or you load them onto your computer or you scan a flash drive, that kind of thing. It's a matter of implementing best practices, looking at the applications that you're installing, who's publishing those, setting the passcode on your phone. When you install an application, a lot of times you see that there are applications asking for awareness of the location, your geolocation. There's a lot of phone protection software anytime you root, jailbreak a phone is another issue, open network, software links, a lot of it's just plain common sense. So that could be the root of why this particular threat or this announcement was made. And what that is is, threat levels are consistently going up, may not be an outlying emergency threat if you will, but let's all get to a base level of good best practices with our phones because we're seeing a lot of malware pop up and use your best behavior on these things and for the best usage of the device. Well John thanks so much for your time today, we appreciate you joining us as always. Thank you very much. For in-depth coverage on news of the day and the latest breaking analysis join us daily at news desk on silicon angle TV.