The new Consumer Financial Protection Board–and the FTC–will have their digital hands full as they begin to investigate the stealth world of online financial marketing.  Disclosure and consumer control has to be built into these applications–but they are not. Of interest is a trial run by Google in the UK to sell credit cards, part of its move into “comparison” marketing. According to New Media Age [my emphasis], “Google is testing its own [credit card] comparison product, launched earlier this year. Currently focused purely on UK credit card providers, it lets users search on Google, click on an interactive ad showing rates from participating advertisers and takes them to a comparison page. Advertisers bid for user profiles that match their target audience and pay on a cost-per-lead basis.”
Take a look at Google’s credit card comparison site; does a consumer know about the advertiser bidding to buy their profile? See also Google similar product selling mortgages here in the U.S.
