The Federal Trade Commission has released a report urging social networking sites to set up a “do not track” mechanism for consumers to allow them to opt out of online behavioral advertising. But don’t go looking for some government website similar to the national Do Not Call registry. This proposed list would be maintained via the very tool that tracks consumers: cookies.

The FTC urges social networking sites to set up a “browser-based mechanism through which consumers could make persistent choices” as to whether they want to be tracked:

The most practical method of providing uniform choice for online behavioral advertising would likely involve placing a setting similar to a persistent cookie on a consumer’s browser and conveying that setting to sites that the browser visits, to signal whether or not the consumer wants to be tracked or receive targeted advertisements.

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FTC wants "do not track" button on your browser, pronto