Note to advertisers who want to track me online: Buzz off.

My privacy is sacrosanct to me, both in my home and online. I have already made enough compromises to accommodate the digital world that I live in. Giving advertisers the green light to profile me, follow me around on the Internet, and show me ads based on my behavior is wrong, and flat-out creepy. It’s also potentially dangerous, and it could lead to virtual forms of redlining, leaving the lone consumer at the mercy of powerful companies more interested in their bottom line than my well-being.

Current do-not-track , and other initiatives put forth on the state level, , are important first lines of defense against an unchallenged advertising industry willing to test the limits of my personal privacy in exchange for a dime. I applaud these do-not-track efforts, as well as similar ones by Microsoft and the Mozilla Foundation with their respective browsers, Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4, both of which empower the consumer with do-not-track features ().

Right now advertisers have the upper hand. In the United States we have few limits on how Web-based companies can track consumers online, and with whom they share that data. Without legal limits--and because do-not-track controls within IE and Firefox rely on the voluntary participation of Websites--consumers are caught in privacy purgatory and have no way to say "no" to tracking.