Prof. Kathryn Montgomery and I just published an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health [JAH] on the the role interactive marketing plays in the current youth obesity epidemic. It is part of a special JAH issue focused on the obesity issue. It’s a very good introduction to the current digital marketing landscape, and is one of a series of reports we have done on the issue.
Category: children online
The Battle to Protect Adolescent Privacy Online–Maine’s new law and beyond
Online marketers–including Time Warner’s AOL–are up in arms over a new state of Maine law that is designed to protect adolescent privacy online. We won’t get into the specifics of Maine’s new law at the moment (but heard some online advertisers are especially fearful of the “private right of action” in the law, which could bring citizen lawsuits). But we know its sponsors are among the growing number of advocates, health professionals, consumer groups and parents that want to see teenage privacy respected. Digital marketing techniques are being used to target teens, including the gathering of data for behavioral profiling.  Groups have already asked the FTC and Congress to address this problem.
Responsible marketers should support new safeguards that respect teen privacy. There are also a variety of consumer protection issues connected to online advertising that need to be addressed. We expect this issue will be fought out at the state, federal and international level. My CDD will be continuing its work bringing unfair marketing practices targeting adolescents before the FTC and other regulators.
Progress & Freedom Foundation Comes to Aid of its Data-Collecting Backers (Using a `save the newspapers’ as a ploy to permit violations of consumer privacy protection!)
This report from Internetnews.com on the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s “Congressional” briefing illustrates how desperate some online marketers are that a growing number of bi-partisan congressional leaders want to protect consumer privacy. So it’s not surprising that some groups that are actually financially supported by the biggest online marketing data collectors in the world would hold a Hill event to help out the friends who pay their bills.
It should have been noted in Ken Corbin’s that Google, Microsoft, Time Warner (AOL), News Corp. (MySpace) financially back the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF). Other behavioral data targeting `want to be’s’ who monopolize U.S. online and other platforms are also backers: AT&T, Comcast, NBC, Disney/ABC, Viacom/MTV/Nick, etc. For a list, see here.
PFF and some of its allies deliberately distort the critique of consumer and privacy groups. We are not opposed to online marketing and also understand and support its revenue role for online publishing. But many of us do oppose as unfair to consumers a stealth-like data collection, profiling and ubiquitous tracking system that targets people online. One would suppose that as a sort of quasi-libertarian organization, PFF would support individual rights. But given all the financial support PFF gets from the major online data collectors, how the group addresses the consumer privacy issue must be viewed under the `special interests pays the bills’ lens.
PFF and its allies are playing the ‘save the newspaper’ card in their desperate attempt to undermine the call for lawmakers to protect consumer privacy. Newspapers and online publishers should be in the forefront of supporting reader/user privacy; it enhances, not conflicts, with the First Amendment in the digital era. Finally, PFF’s positions on media issues over the years has actually contributed to the present crisis where journalism is on the endangered species list. This is a group that has worked to dismantle the FCC, eliminate rules designed to foster diverse media ownership, and undermine network neutrality.
PS: The article quotes from Prof. Howard Beales of George Washington University (and a fCV,ormer Bush FTC official with oversight on privacy). Prof. Beales was on the PFF panel. Prof. Beales, according to his CV has served as a consultant to AOL and others (including Primerica and the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America). Time Warner, which owns AOL, is a PFF financial backer. All this should have been noted in the press coverage.
Online Consumers Require Real Privacy Safeguards, Not the Digital Fox [AAAA, ANA, BBB, DMA & IAB] in Charge of the Data Hen House
The self-regulatory proposals released today [2 July 2009] by five marketing industry trade and lobby groups are way too little and far too late. This move by the online ad industry is an attempt, of course, to quell the growing bi-partisan calls in Congress to enact meaningful digital privacy and consumer protection laws. It’s also designed to assuage a reawakened Federal Trade Commission–whose new chair, Jon Leibowitz, recently appointed one the country’s most distinguished consumer advocates and legal scholars to direct its Bureau of Consumer Protection (David Vladeck). The principles are inadequate, even beyond their self-regulatory approach that condones, in effect, the “corporate fox guarding the digital data henhouse.†Effective government regulation is required to protect consumers. We should have learned a painful lesson by now with the failure of the financial industry to oversee itself. The reckless activities of the financial sector—made possible by a deregulatory, hands-off government policy–directly led to the current financial catastrophe. As more of our transactions and daily activities are conducted online, including those involving financial and health issues–through PCs, mobile phones, social networks, and the like–it is critical that the first principle be to ensure the basic protection of consumer privacy. Self-dealing “principles†concocted by online marketers simply won’t provide the level of protection consumers really require.
The industry appears to have embraced a definition of behavioral targeting and profiling that is at odds with how the practice actually works. Before any data is collected from consumers, they need to be candidly informed about the process–such as the creation and evolution of their profile; how tracking and data gathering occurs site to site; what data can be added to their profile from outside databases; the role that data targeting plays on so-called first-party websites, etc. In addition, the highest possible consumer safeguards are necessary when financial and health data are involved. Under the loosey-goosey trade industry principles, however, only “certain health and financial data†are to be treated as a “sensitive†category. This would permit widespread data collection involving personal information regarding our health and financial concerns. The new principles, moreover, fail to protect the privacy of teenagers; nor do they seriously address children’s privacy. (I was one of the two people that led the campaign to enact the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).
The failure to develop adequate safeguards for sensitive consumer information illustrates, I believe, the inability of the ad marketing groups to seriously address online privacy. The so-called “notice and choice†approach embraced by the industry has failed. More links to better-written privacy statements don’t address the central problem: the collection of more and more user data for profiling and targeting purposes. There needs to be quick Congressional action placing limits on the collection, use and retention of consumer data; opt-in control over profile information; and the creation of a meaningful sensitive data category. Consumer and privacy groups intend to work with Congress to ensure that individuals don’t face additional losses due to unfair online marketing practices.
[press statement by the Center for Digital Democracy]
The Growing Role of Advertising in Online Video (and a Pitch by Google for Greater Ad into Content Integration)
As advertisers continue to exert greater influence in online programming content (and as we prepare for what will eventually be a digital version of the 1950’s Quiz show scandals), we are tracking this trend. Here is an excerpt from Screenplays magazine on a recent Internet “upfront” conference held by ad company Digitas: Across the board the message was that advertisers aren’t interested in backing web content without having access to precisely the right performance data…Measuring engagement…is a big component of tracking ROI…Carls Jr. recently rolled out an online video campaign with eight YouTube stars, said Alex Levy, director of Branded Entertainment at Google. “Brands increasingly have an appetite for web content and the DVR has made everything old new again. We have to keep figuring out how to integrate into the content itself, she said.
New York Web Confab Reveals Hurdles Agencies Have Set for Video Ad Metrics. Screenplays. June 9, 2009
Google’s YouTube Pushes Carls Jr. Burgers. 53 grams of fat/870 calories/It’s #1 Video Ad for the Week
Take a look at this YouTube branded ad campaign for Carls Jr. Look at the nutrition information. The ad, says Visible Measures, is at the “number one spot on the Top Ad Campaigns chart this week showcases vloggers from the Nigahiga comedy group chomping down for Carl’s Jr.’s How To Eat A Burger campaign, which features the Portobello Mushroom Burger. The campaign grabbed a record-breaking 3.3+ million views…”
FTC’s Behavioral Ad Principles–the last act of the Bush Administration? Why is the Obama White House Allowing the FTC To Remain Under the Leadership Appointed by Pres. Bush?
In a few hours, approximately between 10-11 am eastern, the FTC is expected to release its final “Online Behavioral Advertising Principles.” Originally released for comment in December 2007, the principles are a sort of Valentine’s Day present to the online ad industry from the (supposedly departed) Bush Administration. From what we know, the FTC principles support self-regulation. Online marketers will be told they should behave better–and here are suggestions. It’s like a teacher telling a misbehaving student–‘behave better, dear,’ or else we will have to tell your parent (in this case, the guardian being potential congressional action).
My CDD urged Commissioners Harbour and Leibowitz to issue separate statements on the principles, and call for tougher requirements—especially in the area of so-called sensitive information. This would include data connected to our financial and health related online activities (think mortgage and loan applications or queries for prescription drugs). CDD and a coalition of groups also formally asked the commission to impose serious privacy safeguards for both children and adolescents.
But these principles were crafted within the narrow confines of the Bush Administration philosophy prevailing at the FTC. Only self-regulation is permitted. Consequently, such an approach likely means these rules leave the online data collection, profiling and targeted marketing system which comprise behavioral marketing off the privacy protection hook.
But one question looms at the moment. Why has the new Obama administration allowed the FTC to remain under the leadership of Bush-appointee William E. Kovacic? The principles being issued today, in fact, reflect the “old” FTC, not one run under the philosophy of President Obama. Why is the Obama White House failing to ensure a change of leadership at the FTC? The agency is responsible for overseeing a huge portion of the economy, including critical financial issues. It’s also supposed to be the leading agency on consumer protection issues.  The Obama White House should have–by now-found someone who would led the FTC, so it can better protect the public.
The principles being released today were only made possible because of the Bush FTC give-away to Google, when it approved its takeover of online ad giant DoubleClick. CDD, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and USPIRG fought the merger, including on privacy grounds. FTC Commissioner Pamela Harbour played a key role forcing the agency (then run by Chairwoman Majoris, whose husband’s law firm represented DoubleClick) to address the privacy concerns. As a consequence of the political pressure from its failure to seriously examine the consumer privacy issues of the Google deal, the FTC staff were told to develop these principles.
The next chair of the FTC needs to take privacy and online consumer protection issues seriously. The agency does need more resources, but also a new spirit. If the FTC had been on the job, and was examining how lending institutions were recklessly promoting loans and mortgages, maybe today’s mess wouldn’t be as tragic as it is. More to come after the commission releases the principles.
Digital Marketing of Toys to Children Reflects Seamless Merging of Online & Online, inc. Play
Here’s a telling comment via a senior Disney executive:
“Disney says it sees online as a vital part of its strategy to turn its very well-known brand name into greater market share by making itself more relevant than ever to both children and parents…”That’s why [says Edward Catchpole, senior European VP for toys, Disney] all the sites we operate for our brands are not extensions, they’re seamless integrations, part of owning that toy, part of the play pattern. A young girl will run around pretending to be a fairy, then play with a toy and then go online and immerse themselves in a virtual world at one of our communities, like Pixie Hollow or Club Penguin. We also have a social network based around [Disney/Pixar movie] Cars in the US, which tends to be used more by boys,” Catchpole adds.”
source: Vertical Focus: Toy retailing. Sean Hargrave. New Media Age [UK]. November 27, 2008 [sub required]