Some commentators–and groups funded by online marketers that target teens–are worried that proposals to the FTC and Congress that adolescent privacy be protected will somehow create a system that requires forms of age verification online. The coalition of leading consumer, child advocacy, health and privacy organizations filing comments at the FTC last week aren’t calling for the parental permission paradigm used by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act [COPPA] be extended to teens. But there are many online commercial services specifically targeting adolescents–that’s their target market. It’s those sites and services specifically focused on adolescents that we want to have better privacy safeguards.  We want those sites to be governed by an opt-in regime that gives teen users meaningful control of how their information is collected and utilized. Those sites should be required to engage in the Fair Information Principles known as “data use minimization.” Commercial sites targeting adolescents should make its data collection practices fully transparent and under the control by the teen (including a truly accessible privacy policy). In another words, a privacy safeguard regime that really should be available for everyone. Teens are ‘ground zero’ for much of digital marketing–for examples see our site: www.digitalads.org [especially the update section]. If you look at the reports on that site, you will see that the most recent scholarly thinking is that brain development in adolescents occurs much later than what was once thought. They don’t have the ability to effectively understand the intent of highly sophisticated interactive marketing and the corresponding data collection which underlies contemporary digital advertising. That’s why empowering them so they can protect their privacy strengthens their rights.
Category: YouTube
Online Ad Lobby and Chamber Celebrate Victory over Consumer Protection & FTC
Yesterday, the online ad lobby [IAB, ANA, DMA]–working with Chamber of Commerce–scored a major political victory by forcing the Financial reform bill conference committee to drop proposed provisions that would have strengthened the FTC. Under the House bill, the FTC would have been given the same kind of regulatory authority most federal agencies have [APA rulemaking]. Marketers and advertisers are celebrating their win, because it keeps the FTC on a weakened and short political leash. While consumer protection is significantly expanded because of the CFPB and new financial rules, the FTC is to remain largely hamstrung. The online marketing and advertising lobby [including ANA, DMA–see below] were afraid that the newly invigorated FTC under Pres. Obama would require the industry to protect privacy online and also become more accountable to consumers engaged in e-commerce.  I heard IAB and Chamber are dancing in the streets! Congressmen Barney Frank, Henry Waxman and Sen. Rockefeller deserve praise for working hard to protect consumers, including their proposal on the FTC.
Here’s what two of the ad groups placed on their sites about the FTC issue:
Progress on FTC Enforcement Provisions in Wall Street Reform Conference
June 23, 2010
The marketing and media community has made substantial progress on defeating the broad expansion of FTC powers that is included in the House version of the Wall Street reform bill. But we still need your assistance to keep these provisions out of the final bill.
Yesterday the Senate conferees presented an offer on the bill that rejected the new FTC powers that are in the House version. Chairman Dodd indicated that while he may support changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking process, there is no Senate provision and these issues are too complex and important to be resolved in the context of the Wall Street reform bill. Conferees hope to finish the conference this week so the final bill can be cleared for the President’s signature next month.
The House conferees may still continue to push for these provisions, so it is very important that marketers contact the Senate conferees to express our appreciation for their support and to urge them to remain strongly opposed to these new powers for the FTC in this bill. Contact information for the Senate conferees is located here and our letter to Senate conferees is available here. Please let the Senators know if you have plants or operations in their states.
ANA took part in a very important meeting yesterday with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller on these issues. We argued that these issues are very important to the entire marketing community and deserve careful consideration outside of the context of the Wall Street reform bill. The Chairman strongly indicated that he will continue to push for changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking procedures this year.
If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Dan Jaffe (djaffe@ana.net) or Keith Scarborough (kscarborough@ana.net) in ANA’s Washington, DC office at (202) 296-1883.
http://www.ana.net/advocacy/content/2418
DMA Asks Financial Reform Conferees to Keep FTC Expansion Out of ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act’
June 10, 2010 — The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today was joined by 47 other trade associations and business coalitions in sending a letter to each of the conferees on H.R. 4173, the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act†(RAFSA), urging them to keep language that would dramatically expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) out of the final bill.
As the House and Senate conferees work to reconcile their versions of the financial regulatory legislation, the associations — which represent hundreds of thousands of US companies from a wide array of industry segments — expressed strong opposition to provisions in the House version of the bill that would expand the FTC’s rulemaking and enforcement authority over virtually every sector of the American economy.
“The balance struck in the Senate bill is the right one,†said Linda Woolley, DMA’s executive vice president, government affairs. “That bill makes the most sense in the context of financial reform legislation, maintaining the FTC’s existing jurisdiction without expanding its rulemaking and enforcement authority over industries and sectors that had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Issues of FTC expansion deserve their own due consideration and debate in the more appropriate context of an FTC reauthorization, as has been done in the past.â€
DMA and the other associations strongly believe that granting the FTC broad new authority is not a necessary or relevant response to the causes of the recent recession and, therefore, asked the conferees to oppose the inclusion of any provisions that would expand FTC authority, rather than making changes to the Commission that would have a fundamental impact on the entire business community and the broader American economy.
For more information please visit www.dmaaction.org.
http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1449
Google says it’s “at the forefront of a revolution in Marketing”– that includes for the health industry.
One of the areas requiring online privacy and consumer safeguards is the health and medical area. As CDD told the FDA, the use of behavioral data profiling & targeting, immersive multi-media techniques, social marketing [via stealth-like influencer and word-of-mouth tactics, and brand channels, such as on YouTube, raise a host of concerns. I don’t believe one’s largely private concerns about a health condition or remedy should automatically be fodder for digital marketing. To see how important the health online marketing is to Google (and others), here’s an excerpt from a “Consumer Packaged Goods or Healthcare Industry Marketing Manager job opening:
Google is at the forefront of a revolution in Marketing – a shift from traditional Marketing tactics to new online, mobile and social strategies. Google’s advertising platforms provide savvy advertisers with multichannel marketing opportunities, linking online marketing to brand impact and offline sales.
Consumer Packaged Goods or Healthcare Industry Marketing Manager position shapes Google’s point of view on the changing advertising landscape. This leader will uncover, understand and explain the impact of evolving online media to industries that have traditionally relied more on offline media, such as healthcare, CPG, restaurants, education and more. This is a unique opportunity to set Google marketing strategy within our Emerging Industries practice and advise Fortune 1000 advertisers on cutting edge marketing strategies. You will arm the Google salesforce with marketing programs that establish fresh thinking in the industry and deepen engagement with clients…
Responsibilities:
- Ideate, develop, and execute marketing campaigns that drive Google’s advertising business.
- Develop thought-leadership materials, client/executive presentations, case studies and other content designed to accelerate our business momentum and better engage Google’s customers.
- Develop compelling positioning and messaging for Google’s advertising solutions targeted to companies in industries relatively new to online marketing, such as healthcare and CPG
- Partner with Google’s market research team to identify, execute and package compelling market research that supports Google’s value proposition to large advertisers in these industries.
- Evangelize Google’s value proposition, best practices and perspectives to our customers and our industry peers via events, webinars, and other direct client communications channels.
Google Paper on “Opt-in Dystopias”: Doesn’t Reflect What Google Actually is doing with data
The Google Policy blog promoted a paper by two Google employees on the opt-in/opt-out policy debate. The paper is worth reading, but its use is limited because it doesn’t reflect the actual online marketing data collection process. Here’s what I just wrote on the Google site:
The authors need to revise their paper based on the goals and actual practices with online marketing and data collection done by Google and its affiliates. While it’s true that the binary opt-in, opt-out debate is unfortunately narrow, it is used to address far-reaching data collection and targeting strategies implemented by Google and other online marketers. The authors, for example, should examine Google’s use of neuromarketing for its YouTube advertising products; or the role of purposefully developed “immersive” multimedia tied to data collection by DoubleClick. They should analyze Google’s advertising goals, including what it promises to the largest pharmaceutical and financial advertisers, for example. Or examine the growing role of merging offline and online data collection tied to a specific user cookie to be auctioned off that is now routinely used in online ad exchanges (Google owns one such exchange). They should also reflect on how Google–when rushing to catch up with Facebook in the social media marketing business–launched its Buzz product without a careful analysis of its impact on data collection. Google’s researchers on privacy, in other words, would be more credible if they carefully analyzed how their own company uses–and plans to use–data. This issue deserves a robust debate–and we know the authors are sincere in their interest to make an important contribution. But they should also have been candid that Google is fighting off policy proposals from privacy advocates that would empower a user/citizen by allowing them to protect their privacy–including using opt-in. The failure to have global policies that protect privacy is the high social and political cost the public should not have to bear.
Where Does Google and Microsoft Really Stand–with the IAB and ad lobby or for Consumer Protection?
Both Google and Microsoft serve on the executive committee of the Interactive Ad Bureau, a trade association fighting against consumer privacy proposals in Congress and the FTC. The IAB just sent a letter signed by other ad and marketing industry lobbyists opposing Obama and congressional proposals to expand the ability of the FTC to better protect consumers. My CDD just sent emails to officials at both Google and Microsoft asking them to clarify where they stand on the IAB’s letter [see below]. Do our two leading online marketing leaders support financial and regulatory reform, including protecting privacy? Or does the IAB letter–and Google and Microsoft’s own role helping govern that trade lobby group–really reflect their own position against better consumer protection? Not coincidently, the IAB’s PAC has expanded its PAC contribution giving to congress.
Why does the IAB and other ad groups want to scuttle a more capable FTC? Think online financial products, including mortgages, pharmaceutical operated social networks, digital ads targeting teens fueling the youth obesity crisis, ads created by brain research to influence our subconscious minds, a mobile marketing system that targets us because it knows our location, interests and behavior. The IAB is terrified that a responsible consumer protection agency will not only peek under the ‘digital hood,’ as the Obama FTC is currently doing. But actually propose policies and bring cases that rein in irresponsible and harmful business practices. So Microsoft and Google: who are with? Consumers or the special interest advertising lobby?
*****
letter to Google:Â 22 January 2010
Dear Pablo, Jane, Peter and Alan:
As you may know, the Interactive Advertising Bureau recently sent a letter to Congress, along with other ad related groups, opposing the expansion of FTC regulatory authority as proposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill and related reauthorization [http://www.clickz.com/3636212].
Google serves on the executive committee of the IAB’s board. For the record, does Google support IAB’s stance that, as news reports say, if the FTC is given additional enforcement and penalty-making authority, “the FTC could essentially act as an unelected legislature governing industries and sectors across the economy.”
If Google disagrees with the IAB’s letter, I ask that it make its position public as soon as possible. I also respectfully request Google state its position regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal, as well as its position on expanding FTC authority.
Regards,
Jeff Chester
Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org
letter to Microsoft:Â 22 Jan. 2010:
Dear Mike and Frank:
As you may know, the Interactive Advertising Bureau recently sent a letter to Congress, along with other ad related groups, opposing the expansion of FTC regulatory authority as proposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill and related reauthorization [http://www.clickz.com/3636212].
Microsoft serves on the executive committee of the IAB’s board. For the record, does Microsoft support IAB’s stance that, as news reports say, if the FTC is given additional enforcement and penalty-making authority, “the FTC could essentially act as an unelected legislature governing industries and sectors across the economy.”
If Microsoft disagrees with the IAB’s letter, I ask that it make its position public as soon as possible. I also respectfully request Microsoft state its position regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal, as well as its position on expanding FTC authority.
Regards,
Jeff Chester
Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org
Consumer and Privacy Groups at FTC Roundtable to Call for Decisive Agency Action
Washington, DC, December 6, 2009 – On Monday December 7, 2009, consumer representatives and privacy experts speaking at the first of three Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Exploring Privacy Roundtable Series will call on the agency to adopt new policies to protect consumer privacy in today’s digitized world. Consumer and privacy groups, as well as academics and policymakers, have increasingly looked to the FTC to ensure that Americans have control over how their information is collected and used.
The groups have asked the Commission to issue a comprehensive set of Fair Information Principles for the digital era, and to abandon its previous notice and choice model, which is not effective for consumer privacy protection.
Specifically, at the Roundtable on Monday, consumer panelists and privacy experts will call on the FTC to stop relying on industry privacy self-regulation because of its long history of failure. Last September, a number of consumer groups provided Congressional leaders and the FTC a detailed blueprint of pro-active measures designed to protect privacy, available at: http://www.democraticmedia.org/release/privacy-release-20090901.
These measures include giving individuals the right to see, have a copy of, and delete any information about them; ensuring that the use of consumer data for any credit, employment, insurance, or governmental purpose or for redlining is prohibited; and ensuring that websites should only initially collect and use data from consumers for a 24-hour period, with the exception of information categorized as sensitive, which should not be collected at all. The groups have also requested that the FTC establish a Do Not Track registry.
Quotes from Monday’s panelists:
Marc Rotenberg, EPIC: “There is an urgent need for the Federal Trade Commission to address the growing threat to consumer privacy. The Commission must hold accountable those companies that collect and use personal information. Self-regulation has clearly failed.â€
Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy: “Consumers increasingly confront a sophisticated and pervasive data collection apparatus that can profile, track and target them online. The Obama FTC must quickly act to protect the privacy of Americans,including information related to their finances, health, and ethnicity.â€
Susan Grant, Consumer Federation of America: “It’s time to recognize privacy as a fundamental human right and create a public policy framework that requires that right to be respected,†said Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation of America. “Rather than stifling innovation, this will spur innovative ways to make the marketplace work better for consumers and businesses.â€
Pam Dixon, World Privacy Forum: “Self-regulation of commercial data brokers has been utterly ineffective to protect consumers. It’s not just bad actors who sell personal information ranging from mental health information, medical status, income, religious and ethnic status, and the like. The sale of personal information is a routine business model for many in corporate America, and neither consumers nor policymakers are aware of the amount of trafficking in personal information. It’s time to tame the wild west with laws that incorporate the principles of the Fair Credit Reporting Act to ensure transparency, accountability, and consumer control.â€
Written statements and other materials for the roundtable panelists are available at the following links:
CDD/USPIRG: http://www.democraticmedia.org/node/419
WPF: http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/pdf/WPF_Comments_FTC_110609fs.pdf
CFA: http://www.consumerfed.org/elements/www.consumerfed.org/File/5%20Myths%20about%20Online%20Behavioral%20Advertising%2011_12_09.pdf
EPIC: www.epic.org
A Google Online Ad Goal: “engage advertising agencies and brand marketers in programs that move the needle for their companies”
That phrase is part of a Google job ad for a “Display Account Manager” focused on the auto industry (based in Detroit). Here’s an excerpt:
You will drive the online video marketplace forward and engage advertising agencies and brand marketers in programs that move the needle for their companies. The primary responsibility of the Display Account Manager is to drive new business revenue for YouTube and other Google display services and products with Fortune 1000 advertisers across multiple industries. You’ll manage business relationships to ensure that your clients’ needs and requirements are met. Additionally, you will be involved in the operational execution of your clients’ campaigns. This role is not for the faint of heart…Identify and execute on new business with new clients and upsell opportunities for existing clients and prospect within accounts and agencies to uncover leads, new contacts, and revenue.
Google+AdMob=Mobile Privacy Issues for the FTC. Questions should be raised about mobile targeting via “ethnicity”
The Federal Trade Commission should examine the privacy issues connected to the Google/AdMob deal. As we informed the FTC yesterday, AdMob says it can target via “age, gender, HHI, ethnicity, education & context.”
The CDD/USPIRG complaint on mobile advertising provides useful analysis. Here’s an excerpt on its discussion about AdMob:
AdMob: “Mining All the Data We’ve Capturedâ€
AdMob is a “mobile advertising network†seeking to “target mobile users and monetize mobile traffic.†There is inadequate notice and little opportunity to opt-out of this data- gathering. Few mobile users realize that their communications and actions are monitored and recorded in order to create intimate profiles for marketing purposes.
AdMob also targets the youth demographic. It segments “market audiences†into several categories, including a “Digital Natives†category, which include boys and girls as young as 13. AdMob also focuses on social networking sites, claiming it “enables developers to monetize Facebook mobile applications by integrating AdMob’s industry-leading mobile publishing solutions into any Facebook mobile application. Developers building mobile web applications for the Facebook community using the Facebook Platform for Mobile can easily integrate the AdMob code to start serving ads….â€
And AdMob is continually seeking to mine and monetize the data gathered on unsuspecting youths and other mobile users. AdMob’s CEO Omar Hamoui admitted, “We are investing a fair amount of development resources into mining all the data we’ve captured over the last 12 months of ad serving and targeting.â€
AdMob gathers this data (and targets youths) without adequate notice to the consumer, making it difficult for a mobile user to weigh the costs and benefits and choose whether to opt out of this profiling. This constitutes unfair and deceptive practices, and the Federal Trade Commission should scrutinize these actions.
“Cookie Wars, Real-Time Targeting, and Proprietary Self Learning Algorithms: Why the FTC Must Act Swiftly to Protect Consumer Privacy”
That’s the title of comments filed at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by my Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. PIRG. I also just gave a presentation with the same name at last week’s meeting of data protection commissioners in Madrid, Spain.  It’s available here.
Here’s an excerpt:  Today, consumers online face the rapid growth and ever-increasing sophistication of the various techniques advertisers employ for data collection, profiling, and targeting across all online platforms. The growth of ad and other optimization services for targeting, involving real-time bidding on ad exchanges; the expansion of data collection capabilities from the largest advertising agencies (with the participation of leading digital media content and marketing companies); the increasing capabilities of mobile marketers to target users via enhanced data collection; and a disturbing growth of social media surveillance practices for targeted marketing are just a few of the developments the commission must address. But despite technical innovation and what may appear to be dramatic changes in the online data collection/profiling/targeting market, the commission must recognize that the underlying paradigm threatening consumer privacy online has been constant since the early 1990’s. So-called “one-to-one marketing,†where advertisers collect as much as possible on individual consumers so they can be targeted online, remains the fundamental approach.
The “Hidden Persuaders” returns with the growing role of Neuromarketing: “Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subsconscious” [Annals of Mass Micro-Persuasion]
As we have explained to policymakers in the US and EU, the growing use of neuroscience techniques requires government scrutiny and regulatory safeguards. Even political campaigns appear to be using such methods. No one should be permitted, in my opinion, to devise any public effort that is designed to deliberately influence the unconscious part of our brain.
Here’s an except from a research paper by a Nielsen backed neuromarketing firm called Neurofocus.  The paper is “Absorption: How Messages Morph into Meaning And Value in The Mind,” and was written by Dr. A. K. Pradeep. [published September 2008]
For example, as I cited above, we have identified 67 specific ‘best practices’ that should be implemented when words and images are presented on a screen (any screen, from a TV or PC to a mobile phone or movie theater). They are the result of advanced neurological research into various brain functions, and especially research that has delved into the mysteries of diseases like Alzheimer’s, and brain conditions like ADD/ADHD, obsessive/compulsive behavior, and bipolar disorder.
Follow these best practices, give the brain what it wants and likes most, and you stand the best chance of success for your brand and your investment. Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subconscious, where we can measure them for their effectiveness at the level devoid of any ‘outside’ contaminating influences like education, language, cultural ethnicity or other factors.