Jon Leibowitz, the commissioner of the United States Federal Trade Commission said this morning his agency will push for regulation of online ads. "When you’re surfing the Internet, you never know who is peering over your shoulder or how many marketers are watching," Mr. Leibowitz said.

Leibowitz is apparently concerned about behavioral targeting, which seeks to display ads according to a user's online "behavior" which is determined upon analyzing his browsing history.

"People should have dominion over their computers," he said. "The current ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in online tracking and profiling has to end," Mr. Leibowitz said.

The FTC boss said his commission won't hesitate to bring lawsuits against companies if there's evidence of "problematic practices" in the increasingly sophisticated world of behavioral marketing. The FTC is evaluating a proposal from the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other privacy watchdogs, which calls for a Do Not Track List. This Do Not Track List is somewhat similar to the Do Not Call list which enjoyed a huge success.

"If you look back at the Do Not Call list, it was at one time managed by industry. But it didn't gain widespread acceptance until the FTC took it over," said Pam Dixon, who heads the World Privacy Forum, to Ars Technica. "The industry has had seven years to prove they can manage online opt-outs.  It is time to move toward something structured like the Do Not Call list to address the problems we're seeing, and have now seen for seven years."

The proposed Do Not Track list will set up a system which will enable users to block tracking cookies using a browser plugin. The plugin would download periodically a list of domain names supplied by advertising networks, and then block those cookies coming from the list of advertising domains.

Also, Jon Leibowitz said antitrust authorities are reviewing Google Inc's purchase of advertising company DoubleClick as quickly as possible. The $3.1 billion deal also faces opposition from competitors Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc.