In a set of written comments filed Friday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider privacy issues associated with behavioral targeting when crafting its national broadband strategy.

In particular, the FTC referred to deep-packet inspection, which enables providers to "track a consumer's online activities to deliver targeted advertisements" while enabling them to "advantage or disadvantage certain content or applications."

"A significant number of consumers appear to be particularly concerned about the tracking of their online activities for the purposes of, for example, delivering targeted advertisements. It appears consumers generally maintain these concerns even where the data collected is not personally identifiable," the comments — which total 17 pages — read.

The FTC ultimately advised that the broadband plan "maximize incentives for businesses to enter, deploy risk capital, and compete for customers, keeping barriers to entry as low as possible."

Behavioral targeting suffered massive critique last year, with two of its biggest scapegoats, Phorm and NebuAd, losing significant executive support and taking beatings in Congress. In March of this year, major search engines signed off on new behavioral ad guidelines proposed by the IAB in the UK.