Category: media industry lobbying

Google’s Larry Page says, reports the BBC, the less Google can hold data the “more likely we all are to die”

At a Google-sponsored UK meeting called European Zeitgeist 2009, Google-co-founder Larry Page said that deleting user data by the six-month maximum period recommended by the EU privacy expert Article 29 Working Party could harm the public. According to a BBC report:  The European Commission wants data ditched after six months but Mr Page said there were benefits to users.  “More dialogue is needed [with regulators],” he [Mr. Page] told UK journalists at a Google event in Hertfordshire.  He said Google’s ability to plot and predict potential pandemics would not be possible if the firm had to delete search data after six months…Mr Page said deleting search data after six months was “in direct conflict” with being able to map pandemics…Mr Page said the less data companies like Google were able to hold the “more likely we all are to die”.  The European Commission has argued that holding on to search data runs the risk of third parties being able to build profiles of individuals even when some identifying information is deleted.

There is clearly a critical role for data in our society to be analyzed for many reasons–especially public health.  But for Mr. Page to not acknowledge how Google’s businesses are also tied into such data collection and analysis is unfortunate.  It underscores how Google’s top managers have failed to effectively recognize their own role in diminishing individual privacy around the world.  Nor should it go unmentioned that the products they sell on their own advertising platforms may also threaten or challenge the public health–including contributing to the global obesity crisis.

AT&T, Time Warner, Microsoft and Facebook Join New Business Group with Ties to Obama Administration

In the age of social media marketing, what may lobbying look like when the Lincoln Bedroom meets Web 2.0?  This new “progressive” business group will also have to address the special interest agendas of its members, including online marketing and data collection.

excerpt via PR Week about the launch of Business Forward:  The group’s wide-ranging roster includes AT&T, Facebook, Hilton, IBM, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Time Warner and was founded by Democratic strategists… The goal for Business Forward is to provide consistent support for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress.

National Journal reports that: Rather than lobbying, Business Forward’s initial aim will be hosting events around the country to focus on maximizing funds in the $787 billion economic stimulus package…It will be led by political operative Jim Doyle; former Viacom lobbyist David Sutphen, whose sister is Obama’s deputy chief of staff; former Obama media consultant Erik Smith; former Obama campaign staffer Julie Andreeff Jensen; and Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America. Business Forward’s founding members will pay up to $75,000 per year for a membership…

In a letter in Politico, Mr. Doyle explains that “We plan to spend our time encouraging business leaders to discuss how America can make the most of clean energy investments in our current budget, reduce hospital costs through better health care information technology and reform schools so that today’s students are better prepared for tomorrow’s jobs.”

Technology Policy Institute’s Funders: An Online Marketing and Data Collection Lobby [Annals of Undermining Privacy Safeguards]

The Technology Policy Institute has a new study designed to help its corporate backers undermine the growing call to protect consumer privacy online.  Look who funds the TPI (and look for the failure of the study to acknowledge the funders and the conflict of interest) :

  • Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Cable Giants Canoe Ventures and Your Set-top Box Data [Annals of Telling Congress One Thing, But Insiders Another]

From a November 2008 report on Canoe CEO David Verklin’s speech at the “NewTeeVee Live” conference.  Excerpts:  Canoe Ventures outlined its strategy today at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco, where David Verklin, the CEO, outlined the cable industry’s answer to the competition from online video…“Data is the new creative,” Verklin said. He said Canoe thinks the key to that data is the set-top box that’s already hooked up to the televison. That box can tell advertisers exactly how many people are watching an ad.

And this excerpt on Comcast’s data mining warehouse from a January 2009 report in Multichannel News.  Excerpt:  Comcast has sketched out plans for a gigantic database called “TV Warehouse,” able to store a full year of statistics gathered from digital set-tops in more than 16 million households nationwide, according to an industry executive familiar with the project.  TV Warehouse, envisioned as having a massive 500 Terabytes of storage, would then feed up to a database even broader in scope operated by Canoe Ventures, the advanced-advertising venture formed by Comcast and five other large MSOs.  The idea: to give advertisers an enormous set of actual viewing metrics — showing exactly what millions of cable customers watched and when — as opposed to representative samples.

Canoe CEO David Verklin has said the venture expects in the near future to provide viewing metrics for 32 million U.S. cable households, representing about 57 million set-tops.  “One of the first things we must do is bring set-top data into the marketplace and make that the currency,” Verklin said, speaking last November on a panel at the CTAM Summit.  Detailed audience measurement metrics, in Verklin’s view, are crucial to Canoe’s aims to sell interactive-TV services and deliver ads that are “addressable” to individual set-tops.

and an excerpt from an interview with Canoe’s chief technological exec Arthur Orduna.  Worth thinking about the implications:
And when a viewer does respond, or requests information, what happens?

[Orduna]:  There the local system comes into play, and so does Canoe, actually. Because whatever I click will be collected into a separate aggregation server by the MSO or the system. That information would then be sent to a centralized Canoe aggregation server, because we’d be managing all the information for that particular campaign. And then whatever would need to be done with that data, whether it would need to be presented back to the subscriber, or whether it would be compiled for fulfillment or reporting, that would be Canoe’s responsibility.

Congressional Internet Caucus and the State of the Mobile Net: Corporate Donors Influence Group’s Agenda, Leaving Public Vulnerable to Loss of Privacy

When will members of the Congressional Internet Caucus wake up and address the role its special interest dominated “Advisory” Committee is playing?  The Caucus is holding a “State of the Mobile Net” conference on April 23.  It’s doubtful Congress will be receiving the unbiased information they need, given that the sponsors of the event are the leading companies engaged in mobile marketing and data collection.  As typical of the “business model” crafted by the Center for Democracy and Technology connected group known as the Internet Education Foundation, the event prominently acknowledges its  “Platinum” sponsors: the CTIA lobby group, Google, Microsoft and Verizon.  “Gold” sponsors are AT&T, Nokia, T-Mobile.  There is also a category called “promotional” sponsors which lists Yahoo and several others.

It’s highly unlikely that the meeting will discuss the real issues challenging consumer privacy and welfare on the mobile Internet (including, we expect, the recent CDD/USPIRG complaint filed at the FTC– which has helped launch an investigation into that market).   The Advisory Caucus is run by the Internet Education Foundation, whose board members include representatives from Google, Verizon, Comcast, Microsoft, Recording Industry of America, and the Consumer Electronics Association. So the line-up of speakers is crafted to make sure that corporate donor feathers–and their willingness to continue to financially contribute–aren’t ruffled.  On the privacy panel for the event we have, of course, a representative from CDT.   There are also mobile marketers–including Yahoo and loopt.  There is the DLA Piper law firm that advocates for industry and a lone academic. Consumers and citizens deserve better from Congress.

PS:  As an example of how incredibly biased the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Net Caucus is, look at the description and speaker line-up of its recent briefing on online advertising.  A supposed “unbiased” event,  it featured industry lobbyists and several groups funded by online marketers!  Incredibly shameful!

Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus

Anatomy of Online Advertising: Understanding the Privacy Debate
March 30, 2009…The purpose of the briefing is to provide an unbiased foundation for understanding the various privacy issues that Congress will debate in the context of online advertising.

Panelists:

* Paula Bruening, Hunton & Williams
* Maureen Cooney, TRUSTe
* Michael Engelhardt, Adobe Systems
* Tim Lordan, Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee
* Jules Polonetsky, Future of Privacy
* Heather West, Center for Democracy & Technology
* Mike Zaneis, Interactive Advertising Bureau

IAB UK’s “Good Practice Principles” on Behavioural Targeting: Alice in Wonderland Meets Online Data Collection

Last week in Brussels at a EU Consumers Summit, Google and other interactive ad companies pointed to the new Interactive Advertising Bureau/UK “Good Practice Principles for online behavioural advertising” as a model for meaningful self-regulation.  The companies that have endorsed the principles include  AOL/Platform A, AudienceScience, Google, Microsoft Advertising, NebuAd, Phorm, Specific Media, Yahoo! SARL, and Wunderloop.   The message sent to EU regulators was, in essence, don’t really worry about threats to privacy from online profiling and behavioural targeting.  But a review of the Principles suggest that there is a serious lack of “truth in advertising” when it comes to being truly candid about data collection and interactive marketing.  These Principles are insufficient–and are really a political attempt to foreclose on meaningful consumer policy safeguards.

Indeed, when one examines the new online “consumer guide” which accompanies the Principles,  one has a kind of Alice in Wonderland moment.  That’s because instead of being candid about the real purpose of behavioral advertising–and the system of interactive marketing it is a part of–the IAB paints an unreal and deliberately cheery picture where data collection, profiling, tracking, and targeting are just harmless techniques designed to give you a better Internet experience.   UK consumers–and policymakers–deserve something more forthright.

First, the IAB conveniently ignores the context in which behavioural targeting is just one data collection technique.  As they know, online marketers are creating what they term a “media and marketing ecosystem.”  A truly honest “Good Practice Principles” would address all the principal ways online marketers target consumers.  That would include, as IAB/UK knows well, such approaches as social media marketing, in-game targeting, online video, neuromarketing, engagement, etc.  A real code would address issues related to the use of behavioural data targeting and other techniques when used for such areas as finance (mortgages, loans, credit cards); health products; and targeting adolescents.

The IAB/UK also fails to reconcile how it describes behavioural targeting to its members and what it says to consumers and policymakers.  For example, the group’s glossary defines behavioural targeting as:  “A form of online marketing that uses advertising technology to target web users based on their previous behaviour. Advertising creative and content can be tailored to be of more relevance to a particular user by capturing their previous decision making behaviour (eg: filling out preferences or visiting certain areas of a site frequently) and looking for patterns.“  But its new “Good Practice” consumer guide says that “Online behavioural advertising is a way of serving advertisements on the websites you visit and making them more relevant to you and your interests. Shared interests are grouped together based upon previous web browsing activity and web users are then served advertising which matches their shared interests. In this way, advertising can be made as relevant and useful as possible.”

Incredibly, the IAB/UK claims that “the information used for targeting adverts is not personal, in that it does not identify you – the user – in the real world. Data about your browsing activity is collected and analysed anonymously.”  Such an argument flies in the face of what the signatories of the “Good Practice Principles” really tell their online ad customers.  For example, Yahoo in the UK explains that its “acclaimed behavioural targeting tool allows advertisers to deliver specific targeted ads to consumers at the point of purchase.”  Yahoo has used behavioural targeting in the UK to help sell mortgages and other financial products.  Microsoft’s UK Ad Solutions tells customers it can provide a variety of behavioural targeting tools so it “can deliver messaging to the people who are actively looking to engage with what you’re offering…With Re-messaging we can narrow our audience by finding the people who have already visited you. It means we can ensure they always stay in touch and help create continual engagement with your brand…Profile Targeting can help you find the people you’re looking for by who they are, where they are and when you want to be seen by them.”  Time Warner’s Platform A/AOL says “Through our Behavioural Network, we can target your most valuable visitors across our network, earning you additional revenues, or simply fulfil your own campaign obligations.  By establishing certain user traits or demographics within your audience, we are able to target those individuals with the most relevant advertising (tied into their common characteristics), or simply reach those same users in a different environment.”  Or Audience Science’s UK office that explains “While other behavioural targeting technologies simply track page visits, the AudienceScience platform analyzes multiple indicators of intent:

•  Which pages and sections they have visited

•  What static and dynamic content they have read

•  What they say about themselves in registration data

•  Which search terms they use

•  What IP data indicates about them, including geography, SIC code, Fortune 500 rank, specific Internet domains,   and more

Because AudienceScience processes so many indicators of intent, it enables you to create precisely targeted audience segments for advertisers.”  And Google, which knows that the UK is “arguably the most advanced online marketplace in the world” has carefully explained to its UK customers all the data they collect and make available for powerful online targeting.

The Notice, Choice and Education “Good Practice” scheme relies on an ineffective opt-out.  Instead of real disclosure and consumer/citizen control, we have a band-aid approach to privacy online.  The IAB also resorts to a disingenuous scare tactic when it suggests that without online marketing, the ability of the Internet to provide “content online for free” would be harmed.  No one has said there shouldn’t be advertising–what’s been said is that it must be done in a way which respects privacy, the citizen, and the consumer.   Clearly, the new IAB/UK code isn’t a model that can be relied on to protect the public.  UK regulators must play a more proactive role to ensure privacy and consumer welfare online is meaningfully protected.

Google’s Federal Sales Division– “in position to capture Uncle Sam’s spending”

John Letzing of Marketwatch wrote an interesting story last week on Google’s DC-based federal sales division.  Microsoft and many others have long sold technology related products to government.  But as consumer database and online advertising companies, including Google, seek to secure federal contracts, what goes on should be transparent to the public.  Here’s a few excerpts from Mr. Letzing’s fine article, which we urge you to read in its entirety:

“…Google is increasingly well positioned to tap at least one big spender to be found amid the economic malaise: the federal government…Some $20 billion in additional, wide-ranging federal spending is expected to go into technology as part of the recently-passed stimulus package…while the proposed 2010 budget should include at least three times as much for tech-related projects…Google, which in December leased 15,000 square feet of office space for a Washington-area outpost, pitches “search appliances” to agencies, or pieces of hardware installed within a network to facilitate quick access to internal documents and databases…Google has at least one key supporter of [Google] Apps in the new administration. On Thursday, President Obama named Vivek Kundra as the government’s chief information officer. In his former capacity as the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer, Kundra switched its public agencies to Google Apps from Microsoft…There may be even more evidence of Google’s federal bounty, if sales to classified intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency were made public.”

Google in position to capture Uncle Sam’s spending:  Federal agencies testing Google tools; a key fan is Obama’s new tech hire.  John Letzing.  Marketwatch.  March 6, 2009

Google Lobbyist Attack on a Consumer Group and its Foundation Funding: A Chilling Effect. And a Public Apology is Required

Consumer Watchdog is a public interest group in the muckraking tradition of Ralph Nader and his Nader’s Raiders.  They work on a broad range of issues, including health care, clean energy, affordable insurance, etc.  Recently they launched a project focused on keeping Google more accountable, and have raised a number of concerns about the company’s privacy policy, lobbying efforts, etc.   The Watchdog had been working on the health privacy issues raised in what was called the Stimulus package; it made public claims that Google was lobbying the bill–suggesting they were trying to weaken privacy safeguards.  Google strongly denied it, responding that Consumer Watchdog’s accusation was “100 percent false and unfounded.”  This charge by Watchdog–and likely other Consumer Watchdog’s activities such as its focus on privacy risks raised by the Chrome browser– obviously triggered some kind of reflexive anger from Google executives.

According to Watchdog and press reports, Bob Boorstin, Google’s Director of Corporate and Policy Communications, wrote to one of Consumer Watchdog’s foundation funders that: “I am hoping that as you consider the activities of your grantees and whether to renew your commitments, you will take these kinds of activities into account and consider whether there might be better groups in which to place your trust and resources. I would like permission from you to address a letter to your Board of Trustees or Board of Directors in which we can highlight the activities of this grantee.”

Mr. Boorstin’s use of the phrase “better groups” sent a signal to the foundation world:  don’t fund public interest organizations that work aggressively to make one the world’s most powerful companies accountable.  Google’s work to pressure a foundation to cut off support for a privacy group creates a chilling effect.  At a time when Google is increasingly the focus of concern from privacy and consumer groups, and many policymakers around the world, Mr. Boorstin’s letter can be viewed as a self-serving attempt by the company to stifle debate.  If a group such as Consumer Watchdog intentionally libeled the company, than Google can pursue legal action.

But Boorstin’s letter to a funder appears designed to send a strong signal to the foundation world that they shouldn’t financially support groups that critically question the company.  With Congress taking up privacy legislation this year, Google has a great deal at stake.  This is precisely the time when consumers require as many watchdogs as possible, to ensure that Google and other online marketers protect their privacy.

We read in press reports that Mr. Boortsin has since issued an apology, saying that “…I made a mistake in sending information about the group’s activities to the Rose Foundation for which I apologize.  Google supports the right of anyone or any institution to fund whatever group or project they choose.”  But we don’t see any apology on its official policy blog, where it should be.

Yesterday, the National Journal, which covers Washington DC politics and lobbying, reported that “Google is launching a new effort to counter its critics with stepped-up outreach to analysts, journalists, policymakers and think tanks.” [sub required].

Google has an opportunity here to make a break with how things are done in Washington, politics, with privacy policies, and the online ad business.  Groups such as mine and Consumer Watchdog, in essence, are asking Google to be the prototypical ethical corporation.  Become transparent, disclose, embrace openness, develop policies that inform and empower citizens and consumers.  I firmly believe it can do all that and still make a great deal of money.

My group is also funded by the Rose Foundation, as are many other privacy groups. That’s the foundation Mr. Boorstin pressured (they resisted, of course–but the message was sent to the funder world as intended).  Google knows well that philanthropic sources of funding to support privacy work are slim.  Google gives money to certain privacy groups–which in our mind raise conflicts of interests for them.  What’s needed are a growing global array of independent consumer organizations focused on the nature of the emerging digital economy–and which means Google will likely be the subject of serious scrutiny and debate.  Google should be welcoming such civil society activity–instead of trying to smother it.

This incident suggests that Google leaders need to seriously examine how best to address their critics–and also work harder to resolve conflicts within its corporate culture about its long-term ethical goals.

PS:  On the specific issues of digital health marketing and privacy, there’s more work to be done here.  Google, Microsoft and many others see a gold mine in online health marketing.  Google is interested in the health market.  Here’s an excerpt for a job they had open last year to be based in New York:

Senior Account Executive, Healthcare Vertical

As a Google Healthcare Account Executive, you’ll work with those who provide advertising solutions for companies that produce and sell consumables and health care products/services. The primary responsibility of the GMS Account Executive is to drive and grow new business revenue with Fortune 1000 advertisers in the healthcare Account Executive industry. You’ll manage business relationships to ensure that your clients’ needs and requirements are met. This will require you to serve as their advocate within Google while collaborating with other Google teams to provide them with a comprehensive portfolio of solutions and options. This is a high-adrenaline, client-facing sales role requiring deep industry expertise, proven sales ability with a particular penchant for closing deals, and a broad base of industry contacts. You understand and anticipate how decisions are made, and you’ll persistently explore and uncover the business needs of your key clients.

Responsibilities:

* Work collaboratively with the GMS team to drive revenue growth with new and existing customers in the Pharmaceutical Account Executive industry.

* Develop high-level relationships to serve as a trusted consultant with major customers to optimize their advertising expenditures.

* Generate business plans to define your selling strategies and tactics.

* Understand and adapt to Google’s ongoing product and technology developments.

* Manage multiple cross-product opportunities and projects.

Progress & Freedom Foundation & Online Privacy: Looking at PFF’s Online Ad Industry [& Data Collecting] Funders

Two staffers from the Progress and Freedom Foundation (Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka) issued a quick response to the new FTC online marketing privacy principles.  In a press release announcing the short paper, PFF explains that:

Tighter regulation of the online advertising market in the form of privacy mandates, the authors warn, “would severely curtail the overall quantity of content and services offered—and greatly limit the ability of new providers to enter the market with innovative offerings.”

It’s interesting to consider what such “tighter regulation” of the online marketing might mean for the companies that fund the Progress and Freedom Foundation.  The list includes heavyweights of online data collection, such as Google, Microsoft, News Corp (MySpace and other Fox Interactive properties) and Time Warner.  PFF funders include monopoly ISPs which want to get into interactive data collection and online ad targeting big-time, such as Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon (other PFF supporters include a number of companies engaged in online ad targeting, such as Cox, CBS, NBC, etc).

Perhaps a good research project for PFF would be to examine the online data collection, analysis, and ad targeting work being done by its funders (including all the technologies being used).  We’d like to see the press release on that one!