Category: media industry lobbying

IAB Self-Reg Plan Permits Further Data Profiling–Even When You opt-out!

File this under, please send the icon-based scheme back to rewrite! [our emphasis]
Excerpt via clickz.com:  excerpt:  The online ad industry’s self-regulatory program could allow some companies to continue tracking consumers even when they’ve opted out through the system…As it exists currently, the self-regulatory program overseen by the alliance allows consumers to opt out from data collection and use for behavioral advertising, explained Stu Ingis, a partner at Venable, a law firm working with the industry coalition. If data is only being collected for behavioral advertising, it will no longer be collected from those who opt out using the program. However, when companies involved with the program also use data for additional purposes such as analytics, they may continue tracking and collecting data from people who have opted out through the program – even though those who have opted-out will no longer receive behaviorally targeted ads.

Ball State University, Privacy, and Research Sponsorship by Marketers

Ball State University has developed a reputation for engaging in interactive media research, often working with marketing companies such as Nielsen.  Its Center for Media Design just released research on privacy, suggesting in their comments that the debates on privacy have been over-simplied, including by advocates.  Like many others, Ball State examines privacy and fails to fully explore how online data collection really works in the context of contemporary digital marketing.  But given Ball State’s close ties with online marketers–including the staff of the Center for Media Design–perhaps it’s not surprising that its review didn’t place the issue under the appropriate critical lens.

For example, Sequent Partners, which works on online marketing and other related issues, is a partner of Ball State.  Sequent explains that:
Sequent Partners is the majority shareholder in Media Behavior Institute, a consumer-centric and media-neutral multimedia research company formed in 2008 and which enjoys a uniquely close relationship with Ball State University. Media Behavior Institute applied the University’s observational research and conducted the Nielsen Council for Research Excellence Video Consumer Mapping study, the most ambitious multi-media measurement ever conducted.

Sequent Partners is also a shareholder and active member of the Media Trust LLC. This team was formed specifically to analyze in-market advertising and media response, and best-of-class sources of single-source data. Media Trust offers the most insightful set of evaluation tools for media and advertising.

Sequent Partners also has a long-term development and product management relationship with OTX Research (Ipsos ASI) in the area of multimedia advertising research.

Working at the Media Behavior Institute is Mike Bloxham, the long-time research director for the Center for Media Design, who just left the university to also work at a digital media start-up.

The privacy debate is an important one, as are many of the issues at stake in the digital communications era.  The public needs independent research to help address these serious and complex issues.  Scholars and universities have an important role to play.  Ball State is not the only school with its hand-out for grants and research contracts.   But such relationships create conflicts that need to be addressed, including ensuring the research is designed to serve the broader public–not just the special interests supporting the school.

Facebook’s new DC Lobbyist: Oops, I mean “Customer Service” Rep!

Are they a lobbyist to reach out to the GOP or a mere “customer service” representative who can help guide powerful  politicians through the Facebook social media marketing maze?  Read this excerpt from Clickz.com and decide for yourself:

Facebook has hired a Republican Party insider to beef up its political outreach team. Former digital strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Katie Harbath…will join the firm’s small Washington, D.C.-based team as associate manager, policy…The company considers the role to be a customer service position, aimed at helping legislators and their staffers, congressional committees and political campaigns make better use of Facebook. Until now, Facebook’s U.S. Politics Page, politics-related media partnerships, and Capitol Hill outreach has been handled primarily by two Facebook public policy execs, Adam Conner Andrew Noyes, the firm’s manager, public policy communications….[and] Twitter also is building out a D.C. staff. In January, Adam Sharp, was set to begin his work as the company’s government and political partnerships manager. He is charged with helping lawmakers, politicians, and government staff take better advantage of the micro-blogging site.

U.S. Online Marketers Want Obama Adm. to Press for Weaker Privacy Safeguards for EU, Asia-Pacific & Other Global Citizens & Consumers

The U.S.’s larger marketing, advertising and media lobbying organizations want the Obama Administration to help them continue to engage in behavioral data profiling and other digital marketing techniques without meaningful safeguards.  Trade groups–including the Direct Marketing Association, Interactive Ad Bureau, and the 4A’s–  told the Obama Commerce Department it wants it to negotiate a trade deal with the EU and elsewhere that would give U.S. online ad companies, in essence, a free pass on data collection and tracking.  Can you believe they want U.S. self-regulation (ineffective and a cover to permit the expansion of consumer data collection) to be the global standard.  File this under digital Chutzpah!  They wrote in a [my emphasis]  filing:

We support the Department’s recommendation that the U.S. government continue to develop a framework for mutual recognition of an international data privacy framework. The Department has an important role in representing and advocating for the interests of American businesses.  We believe that the Department has the experience and expertise needed not only to represent the interests of U.S. industry, but to lead the global privacy policy debate.  We recommend that the Department advocate for a global framework consistent with U.S. privacy standards, including the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, which have allowed U.S. companies to lead the world in innovation and to remain economically competitive.  In addition to decreasing regulatory barriers to trade and commerce, global interoperability should promote—or at a minimum not impede—economic competition and innovation.  We believe the U.S. approach to privacy policy meets these goals.

Here’s who signed the filing.  Attention EU–watch out.  And a question for the Obama Administration.  Which side of the keeping the online medium a real reflection of democratic potential will you be on?

American Advertising Federation
American Association of Advertising Agencies
ASAE
Association of National Advertisers
Coalition for Healthcare Communications
Direct Marketing Association
Electronic Retailing Association
Interactive Advertising Bureau
MPA — The Association of Magazine Media
National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy
Newspaper Association of America
Performance Marketing Association
TechAmerica

Innovation, Digital Marketing & Privacy: Debunking the Google, Facebook and online ad lobby myths






As was done during the 1990’s by the online marketing industry to oppose consumer privacy rules at the FTC and eleswhere, once again digital advertising companies disingenuously claim that enacting appropriate privacy safeguards will [as Google puts it]: “thwart the ability of companies to develop new services and tools, and in turn make U.S. Internet companies less competitive globally and make the Internet a less robust medium….an anti-innovation framework would counterproductively choke off the development of new tools and services to protect personal privacy.”  Facebook similarly told the industry-friendly Commerce Department that “imposing burden privacy restrictions could limit Facebook’s ability to innovate, making it harder for Facebook to compete...”  The facts—as Google, Facebook and the other companies undoubtedly know—show this to not be the case. First, online marketers, including Google, did not build-in serious privacy and consumer protection safeguards into their online marketing products.  All the innovation has and is focused on expanding the data collection, profiling and targeting of each user, across multiple platforms and applications.   Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, ad agencies and digital marketing companies have significantly invested in creating new forms of digital data collection and new ways to measure it.  That point is something that the industry doesn’t volunteer and that regulators and policymakers should recognize.  It has taken a global public uproar and governmental pressure that has forced Google, Facebook and the entire online ad industry to more seriously acknowledge and respond to concerns on privacy practices.  (In fact, it was only due to the pressure brought by CDD, EPIC and colleagues opposing Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick that forced the FTC to issue new staff proposals for behavioral advertising and privacy.  Pressure from NGOs has been a key factor on industry and policymakers).

The U.S. is the global leader in developing and deploying online advertising applications and data targeting technologies.  It sets the standard in the E.U, Asia Pacific, South America and elsewhere.  Once the FTC establishes its new Framework, and as the EU revises its own to reflect contemporary online commercial data collection techniques, U.S. online marketers can engage in the same spirit of innovation that will make their online products and practices truly privacy friendly.  The FTC, the White House and Congress should not permit Google and other digital marketers to invoke the term “innovation” as it was some magic political talisman that automatically will choke-off reasonable consumer privacy policy safeguards.  Its time to set aside the self-serving claims that privacy safeguards will undermine innovation.  Indeed, it is common sense to also admit that once consumers know that their privacy is respected, there will be greater confidence in e-commerce and online marketing generally.  But many in the online ad lobby are afraid that if a consumer is honestly told about the digital marketing process, including the tactics used to harvest their data, an aware public will be wary of the online system.  They will undoubtedly be concerned–but it’s an excellent reason to work together and enact new serious public policies that ensure consumers are fairly treated in the digital marketplace.

PS:  In Facebook’s privacy filing it cites President Obama’s State of the Union speech where he singled out Facebook and Google as examples of innovation in the U.S.  We doubt the President intended Facebook to use his speech as a political tool arguing against protecting consumers online through privacy regulation.  Everyone should read Facebook’s submission–especially Facebook users.  It is one of the most self-serving and narrow-minded policy screeds I have read recently.  They invoke the concept of the “social web” as if it should automatically permit Facebook to be a consumer protection free- zone.  Note in the document how Facebook urges the FTC (which is likely investigating it as we speak) to “continue to pursue a retrained approach to enforcement.”  How wonder it just hired another lobbyist--a former Bush White House top staffer.

Google & WPP Showcases their Academics–Helping Erode Privacy and Expand Data Mining of Consumers [video]

Take a look at this Google Business Channel YouTube video showcasing some of the academics who received funding and access to proprietary data for work designed to expand interactive marketing. [you may need to subscribe to the Business Channel.  Look for 2010 WPP-Google Marketing Research Awards]  Google and WPP have a “scholars” program designed to help these two online marketing giants and the field better data mine consumers.  One project is even being used to undermine the need for consumer privacy policies.  An academic in the video discusses the funding he received from Google/WPP for “Unpuzzling the Synergy of Display and Search Advertising: insights from Data Mining of Chinese Internet Users.” [Let’s discuss the human rights related issues later!]  Profs. Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker, whose work has been cited by the online ad lobby in their attempts to stave off consumer protection–and who filed their own Comment in the Commerce privacy proceeding suggesting that somehow protecting privacy could undermine the economic vitality of the industry–are also in the video.

Scholars who take industry money to support research and policies must, of course, always significantly acknowledge such a special interest funding relationship (to the press and policymakers, esp).  There are serious conflicts of interests taking such funding, which should raise questions about the objectivity of the research.  Academics should also recognize, and accept personal responsibility, that their research is likely being used to advance an agenda that often places consumers and citizens at a disadvantage and at risk. For example, Google has not played a serious proactive role protecting privacy online and addressing the consumer protection related issues accompanying much of digital marketing.  Instead of scholars who act as public intellectuals, too often we have researchers who become political pawns used by the marketing and media industry lobby.

Here’s a list of the academics who took Google/WPP funds in 2010 to help these two online ad giants better understand “how online media influences consumer behavior, attitudes and decision making.expand the impact of online advertising.”

2010 Google & WPP Award participants:

  1. Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, Carnegie Mellon: Channels and Conflict: Efficient Marketing Strategies for Internet Digital Distribution Channels.
  2. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Boston University and William Rand, University of Maryland: Media, Aggregators and the Link Economy: An Analytical and Empirical Examination of the Future of Content.
  3. Anita Elberse, Harvard University and Kenneth Wilbur, Duke University: What Is The Right Mix Between Offline And Online Advertising? A Study Of The Entertainment Industry.
  4. Arun Sundararajan, NYU and Gal Oestreicher-Singer, Tel Aviv University: The Breadth Of Contagion Of The Oprah Effect: Measuring The Impact Of Offline Media Events On Online Sales.
  5. Yakov Bart, Miklos Sarvary, Andrew Stephen, INSEAD: Consumer Responses To Mobile Location-Based Advertising.
  6. V Kumar, Vikram Bhaskaran and Rohan Mirchandani, Georgia State University: Measuring the Total Value of a Customer through Own Purchases and Word of Mouth Referrals: A Field Study in India.
  7. Alan Montgomery and Kinshuk Jerath, Carnegie Mellon: Predicting Purchase Conversion From Keyword Search Using Associative Networks.
  8. Shawndra Hill, University of Pennsylvania and Anand Venkataraman, 33Across: Collective Inference For Social Network-Based Online Advertising.
  9. Anindya Ghose, NYU: Modeling The Dynamics Of Consumer Behavior In Mobile Advertising And Mobile Social Networks.
  10. Jane Raymond, Bangor University: The Importance Of Relevance: Cognitive Science Research On Distraction By Advertisement On The Internet.
  11. Koen Pauwels, Dartmouth, Oliver Rutz, Yale, Shuba Srinivasan, Boston University and Randolph Bucklin, UCLA: Are Audience-Based Online Metrics Leading Indicators Of Brand Performance?

Arianna Huffington’s AOL Privacy Problem–Will She Be a “Progressive” and Limit Behavioral Targeting?

Ms. Huffington’s HuffPost used behavioral targeting and other forms of interactive marketing to help make the news site successful.  At HuffPost, the privacy issues involved with such practices were never seriously addressed.  But now Ms. Huffington has a new role as the editorial executive for AOL’s content service.   But AOL is engaged in extensive and manipulative forms of behavioral targeting–including the pervasive online targeting of teens, African Americans, health and medical consumers and patients, for financial service products, etc.  Like other online marketers, AOL claims such online tracking, profiling and targeting isn’t really personally identifiable–which is both inaccurate and deceptive.  We challenge Ms. Huffington to engage in a serious journalistic investigation of AOL’s privacy practices and redress them.  There should be absolutely no targeting of adolescents.  Behavioral targeting of African-Americans, financial and health products should be by prior opt-in consent only.  Ms. Huffington should be held responsible for AOL’s privacy and online marketing practices–and we expect her to address them as she increasingly plays a greater leadership role in the online ad industry.  Meanwhile, here’s what AOL says it does using behavioral targeting focused on African-Americans:

Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Black Voices. People who visit Black Voices for the latest in news, entertainment, sports, lifestyle, careers, money and more.
  • You can target the following subsections of the Black Voices audience:
  • Auto Intenders. In-market car, truck or motorcycle shoppers who are looking for specific makes and models. They read reviews, look at pricing and features, and research financing options.
  • Die Hard Sports Fans. Dedicated fans who follow professional and collegiate sports, stay on top of player rankings, and shop for sports memorabilia.
  • Entertainment Buffs. People who follow the latest news about celebrities, movies, music and soaps. They purchase DVDs, music and video games online and also take an active interest in memorabilia.
  • Money Minders. Affluent, older individuals who are seeking online financial advice, checking the performance of their investments, getting tax advice, planning their retirement and researching insurance options.
  • Moviegoers. Movie buffs who read the latest reviews, follow celebrity gossip and purchase tickets/DVDs online.
  • Travelers. Personal and business travelers who are interested in travel advice and deals. They use the internet to purchase airline tickets, book accommodations, make car reservations and research financing options.

Accurate. Pinpoint your customers with other powerful targeting solutions:

  • Develop a custom audience segment modeled after visitors to your site (Look-Alike Modeling).
  • Find African American households that have the greatest propensity to purchase specific products or brands (MRI Lifestyle Clusters).
  • If you’re sponsoring an AOL page, retarget consumers who have visited it (Sponsorship LeadBack).
  • Find your ideal African American audiences on the sites they are most likely to visit (Subnet Targeting).
  • Find AOL members who have selected the AOL Black Voices Welcome Screen as their homepage option, or who have indicated (through third party data) that someone in their household is of African American ethnicity (Audience Rosters).

and its behavioral targeting of consumers looking for mortgages and other financial products:

Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Business Decision Maker. Individuals with an active interest in business news and strategy.
  • Money Minders. Affluent, older individuals who are seeking online financial advice, checking the performance of their investments, getting tax advice, planning their retirement and researching insurance options.
  • Real Estate Intender. In-market individuals looking to buy, sell or rent property.
  • Small Business Owner. Small business professionals shopping for real estate, health care and office and computer equipment.
  • Investors. Affluent individuals who read business news, evaluate stocks, seek financial advice and conduct trades online.
  • Insurance Intender. Individuals seeking information about life, auto, home or health insurance.
  • Mortgage Intender. Individuals seeking information about mortgage rates and/or home loans.

and AOL’s adolescent targeting [for shame!]:
Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Active Gamers. Teens and adults looking for online and console game strategies, tracking game release dates and purchasing video games.
  • Television Watchers. Individuals who keep up with their favorite television shows via TV network sites and online communities.
  • Style Mavens. Trend-focused women interested in the latest fashion, jewelry, and health and beauty items. They like to feel as good as they look by also paying attention to diet and fitness. 
  • AIM Audience. Individuals who have visited AIM properties.

Did the Commerce Dep’t Give a Special Deal to the Online Data Collection Lobby?

It sure sounds that way, given what the Interactive Ad Bureau wrote on the new privacy proposal (our emphasis):

“The green paper is another important step in what has been an inclusive, productive process to develop the Administration’s strategy for increasing consumer online privacy, while balancing the realities of our national economy. It provides vital support for industry self regulation. The Department of Commerce’s recognition that these efforts can be an effective means for increasing transparency around data practices and empowering consumers with a comprehensive, easy-to-use opt-out mechanism is key, given other recent reports. Increasing consumer confidence in the Internet is a common goal. We agree that supporting these industry codes in a timely fashion is critical, and our cross-industry coalition looks forward to working with the Administration to ensure our program is both robust and enforceable.”

The Commerce Department met with our coalition of consumer and privacy groups only once–after we had written to the White House asking for a meeting with officials there.  There was no formal briefing for the country’s leading consumer and privacy groups prior to the report’s release. Yet we understand Commerce did one for industry. As the Obama White House proceeds with its plans for the forthcoming “multi-stakeholder” deliberations, they must be structured in a manner that ensures significant consumer and privacy participation (which means that groups funded by the online ad industry have to be dealt with in different fashion).

Statement of Jeff Chester on the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force Privacy and E-Commerce: a Bill of Behavioral Targeting “Rights” for Online Marketers?

The Obama Administration asks some important questions about protecting the privacy of U.S. consumers.  But given the growth of online data collection that threatens our privacy, including when consumers are engaged in financial, health, and other personal transactions (including involving their families), this new report offers us a digital déjà vu.   The time for questions has long passed.

Instead of real laws protecting consumers, we are offered a vague “multi-stakeholder” process to help develop “enforceable codes of conduct.”  If the Commerce Department really placed the interests of consumers first, it would have been able to better articulate in the report how the current system threatens privacy.    They should have been able to clearly say what practices are right and wrong—such as the extensive system of online behavioral tracking that stealthily shadows consumers—whether on their personal computer or a mobile phone.   The paper should have firmly articulated what the safeguards should be for financial, health and other sensitive data.  The report should have rejected outright any role for self-regulation, given its failures in the online data collection marketplace.  While the report supports a FIPPS framework, these principles can be written in a way that ultimately endorses existing business practices for online data collection and targeting.

This illustrates one of the basic problems with the Administration’s approach to protecting consumer privacy online.  The Commerce Department is focused on promoting the interests of industry and business—not consumers.  It cannot play the role of an independent, honest broker; consequently it should not be empowered to create a new Privacy Policy Office.   Having the Commerce Department play a role in protecting privacy will enable the data collection foxes to run the consumer privacy henhouse.  We call on the Administration and Congress to address this issue.  A new Privacy Policy Office should be independent and operate under the Administrative Procedures Act—ensuring there are safeguards for meaningful public participation and transparency.

The Commerce paper’s real goal is to help U.S. Internet data collection companies operate in the EU, Asia/Pacific and other markets as “privacy-free” zones.  Under the cover of promoting “innovation” and trade, I fear the U.S. will craft a crazy-quilt code of conduct regimes that they will claim should pass muster in the EU (which has a more comprehensive framework to protect privacy).  The Obama Administration appears to be promoting a kind of “separate, but equal” framework, where it will argue that no matter how weak U.S. privacy rules are, other countries should accept them as the equivalent of a stronger approach.  The new paper should have acknowledged the U.S. has to play catch-up with the EU when it comes to protecting consumer privacy.

We have been promised meetings with the new White House subcommittee on privacy, where consumer and privacy groups will raise these and other concerns.

IAB Gets a new Chance to Play Constructive Role as Randall Rothenberg Goes to Time Inc.

The departure of Randall Rothenberg, the head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, provides a critical opportunity for the IAB to revisit its position on protecting consumer online privacy (including Do Not Track).  Under Mr. Rothenberg, the IAB lobbied Congress to restrict the FTC’s ability to protect consumers, including on privacy.  With new leadership, the IAB could begin playing a more constructive role by working with consumer groups to build a consensus on federal privacy rules.  Instead of confrontation and denial, we hope the online ad lobby pursues serious engagement with privacy advocates.   The IAB has become just another inside the Beltway lobbying group–and has lost credibility among many policymakers.  A new IAB leader should be someone who can really help the mission of the industry by engaging in the kind of diplomacy and debate that supports the higher purposes of online advertising, digital publishing, and the public interest.
At Time, Mr. Rothenberg will now be in charge of its online ad network, which uses behavioral targeting and other interactive data techniques.  How Time responds to the growing call for better consumer privacy will be one of Mr. Rothenberg’s new challenges.