Comparative Study: Protection of Privacy in Online Behavioral Advertising Between China and U.S.

China has been striving to succeed in internet commerce, a domain in which online behavioral advertising is a key component. However, there is no law to address online behavioral advertising in China. This loophole allows companies to benefit from people's online activities, and it invades the right of people to control their personal information. To balance the needs of developing internet commerce and the protection to personal information, this paper suggests China should learn lessons from the U.S. that mainly rely on the self-regulation in online behavioral advertising. The second part of this paper overviews the development and current situation of the Internet commerce industry in China, especially the online behavioral advertising industry. The third part reviews and analyzes the laws relevant to protect individual's privacy right, the online behavioral advertising self-regulation and the judicial practices in China, and raises the issue that a conflict between the need to develop the Internet commerce and the protection to the personal information. The fourth part discusses how the United States deals with online behavioral advertising, and the analysis focuses on how the self-regulation system works in the U.S. Finally, this paper goes back to China, suggesting China should learn the experience from the U.S. to develop the self-regulatory system. It includes to borrow some prevailing principles from the self-regulations in the U.S., and to organize an agency similar to the FTC to assure the network advertisers would comply with the principles and thus make sure the Chinese self-regulations could really work in the real world. This paper also suggests China should adapt the U.S. model with its own context: Chinese government should encourage and foster the self-regulatory culture, the government itself should act like a model to respect and protect the personal information, China also should extend the safe harbor program under the COPPA to the whole online behavioral advertising industry, and require all companies in the online behavioral advertising industry to participate in the safe harbor program.