The American consumers have the right to know who and why is tracking their online movement before the actual tracking begins, and should have the opt-in alternative, not the opt-out one that Internet providers offer at the moment. This was the subject of the hearing held on Capitol Hill on Thursday by the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee.

All members of the subcommittee, including Chairman Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), agreed that practices such as that of NebuAd violate customers’ right to privacy and shouldn’t be tolerated unless customers are specifically asked to opt-in for the service, which clearly hasn’t happened.

NebuAd seems to have remained lost in the mist since the entire controversy broke out, as customers stepped away and inquiries poured in: “I feel like Galileo when he was viewed with skepticism on demonstrating that the Earth revolved around the sun,” said NebuAd CEO Robert Dykes, as quoted by CNET News.

Meanwhile, until Dykes manages to find his way out of the mist, the subcommittee Chairman discussed how the technology available today allows for sensitive information regarding the consumer to be used without consent. Makey said an “opt-in” permission from customers before starting any type of online tracking is a must, otherwise such practices will continue to raise privacy concerns.

The current requirements that customers opt-out of the program is “basically saying silence is consent and as a result you can do whatever you want with their information,” Markey said, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

NebuAd is an advertising network company that takes Internet traffic content from ISPs and uses it for targeted advertising. The system however is considered to break consumers’ right to privacy by tracking their online behavior without any type of consent.

The company tried to avoid some of the ardent discussions by releasing a “state-of-the-art online privacy protection for consumers” that notifies customers about “unprecedented innovations in opt-out technology,” but strategy that doesn’t seem to impress privacy advocates or subcommittee members too much.