An old saying has it that half of all advertising budgets are wasted—the trouble is, no one knows which half. In the internet age, at least in theory, this fraction can be much reduced. By watching what people search for, click on and say online, companies can aim “behavioural” ads at those most likely to buy.

In the past couple of weeks a quarrel has illustrated the value to advertisers of such fine-grained information: Should advertisers assume that people are happy to be tracked and sent behavioural ads? Or should they have explicit permission?

In December 2010 America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed adding a “do not track” (DNT) option to internet browsers, so that users could tell advertisers that they did not want to be followed. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari both offer DNT; Google’s Chrome is due to do so this year. In February the FTC and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) agreed that the industry would get cracking on responding to DNT requests.

On May 31 st Microsoft set off the row. It said that Internet Explorer 10, the version due to appear with Windows 8, would have DNT as a default.

Advertisers are horrified. Human nature being what it is, most people stick with default settings. Few switch DNT on now, but if tracking is off it will stay off. Bob Liodice, the chief executive of the Association of National Advertisers, says consumers will be worse off if the industry cannot collect information about their preferences. People will not get fewer ads, he says. “They’ll get less meaningful, less targeted ads.” 

It is not yet clear how advertisers will respond. Getting a DNT signal does not oblige anyone to stop tracking, although some companies have promised to do so. Unable to tell whether someone really objects to behavioural ads or whether they are sticking with Microsoft’s default, some may ignore a DNT signal and press on anyway.

Also unclear is why Microsoft has gone it alone. After all, it has an ad business too, which it says will comply with DNT requests, though it is still working out how. If it is trying to upset Google, which relies almost wholly on advertising, it has chosen an indirect method: there is no guarantee that DNT by default will become the norm. DNT does not seem an obviously huge selling point for windows 8—though the firm has compared some of its other products favourably with Google’s on that count before. Brendon Lynch, Microsoft’s chief privacy officer, blogged: “We believe consumers should have more control.” Could it really be that simple? 

1.It is suggested in Paragraph 1 that “behavioural” ads help advertisers to _________

A provide better online services.

B ease competition among themselves.

C avoid complaints from consumers.

D lower their operational costs.

解析：选D。D细节理解题。根据题目定位到第一段，可知有一半的广告费都被浪费了，在互联网时代，公司可以根据人们在网上搜索、点击和讨论的内容进行定位瞄准，如此即能降低成本，D符合原文，故选D。

2.“the industry” (Para.3) refers to _________

A internet browser developers.

B digital information analysts.

C e-commerce conductors.

D online advertisers.

解析：选A。A词意指代题。根据题目定位到第三段最后一句，可知the industry指的是一个行业，综合该段前半部分内容可知，应该是浏览器相关行业，A符合原文，故选A。

3.Bob Liodice holds that setting DNT as a default _________

A may cut the number of junk ads.

B fails to affect the ad industry.

C will not benefit consumers.

D goes against human nature.

解析：选C。C细节理解题。根据Bob Liodice定位到第五段，可知，Bob认为如果广告行业不能收集消费者喜好的信息（将“禁止追踪”设为系统默认值），消费者会处于更加糟糕的境况，人们不会得到更少的广告，相反，人们会得到更没有意义的、更没有针对性的广告。故选C。

4.Which of the following is true according to Paragraph 6?

A Advertisers are willing to implement DNT.

B DNT may not serve its intended purpose.

C DNT is losing its popularity among consumers.

D Advertisers are obliged to offer behavioural ads.

解析：选B。B推理判断题。根据题目定位到第六段，可知目前还不清楚广告商会作何反应，虽然有些公司承诺会停止追踪（消费者信息），但DNT并不会迫使他们停止追踪，而且由于无法判断用户是不是真的反对广告，有些公司就可能忽略DNT然后继续追踪。B“DNT可能无法达到预期目的”符合原文，故选B。

5.The author’s attitude towards what Brendon Lynch said in his blog is one of _________

A indulgence.

B understanding.

C appreciation.

D skepticism.

解析：选D。D观点态度题。根据Brendon Lynch定位到最后一段，根据最后一个反问句“真的有那么简单吗？”可知作者应该是持怀疑态度，故选D。