"Google is collecting huge amounts of information about YouTube users in order to expand its targeted advertising business," Chester said. Pointing to Google's recent acquisition of DoubleClick as a marker of the company's aspirations, Chester asked, "Why is Google -- and almost every other leading broadband video provider -- tracking and analyzing our online viewing habits?" Chester asked. The goal clearly is to deliver highly targeted marketing campaigns based on the Internet viewing habits and search queries of individual users, he said.

While companies such as Google have argued in the past that the data they collect isn't personally identifiable, it is "antiquated" to think of personal data as simply consisting of information such as names, birthdates, street addresses and Social Security numbers, Chester said. In the online world, IP addresses, Web-site cookies and other tracking data can help narrow down a person's identity more than may typically be assumed, he added. Some of the tracking methods being used by Google and other online companies "make Nielsen's look like it was developed in the Stone Age," Chester quipped.