Most of us depend on free Web services, from Google searches to Facebook updates. Unless you're careful, though, using them has a price: your privacy. Web advertising pays for almost all such services, and this business has become very efficient, delivering ads to grab your attention. That requires tracking who you are and what you do online. Your Web browser reveals a surprising amount about you, and advertisers are keen to find out even more.

The government's principal consumer protection agency, the Federal Trade Commission, has taken the first major step toward addressing this situation with a new draft report that recommends the creation of a "Do Not Track" mechanism that would let Internet users choose, with the click of a button, whether to allow advertisers to track them online. This would offer better privacy controls than exist currently. But ultimately, the FTC's approach falls short of what's needed. That's because tracking technology is interwoven into our most popular websites and mobile services. Without tracking, they simply don't work.