Category: media criticism

IAB and its Proposed Privacy Guidelines: Will Fail to Effectively Protect the Public

So relieved where some in the interactive ad business when they read the FTC’s staff proposed privacy principles released last month that commentators described the reaction as the industry had “dodged a bullet” and “breathed a sigh of relief” [“FTC Online Ad Targeting Guidelines: Industry Breathes A Sigh Of Relief”].

Now Paidcontent describes plans underway by the IAB to offer “privacy standards,” via a “15-member working group,” that includes Time Warner, Microsoft, Yahoo! and others [“Online Ad Industry Groups Take Steps To Self-Police”]. According to the January 4, 2008 article by David Kaplan “[T]he IAB task force will address issues of consumer notice and choice, in terms of deciding the context for selecting opt-in or opt-out.”

IAB lobbyist Mike Zaneis says in the article that “[T]he level of appropriate choice needs to be flexible…consumer regulation will prove to be more efficient and powerful than government regulation.” Zaneis considers the campaign against Facebook that resulted in some modest–and ineffective in my view–changes in its data collection system as an illustration of “consumer regulation.” It’s clear that the IAB is incapable of developing a policy that will protect consumers. Anyone who understands the contemporary dimensions of the interactive marketing industry–and has the public welfare in mind–should recognize what is required. The IAB will not be taken seriously if it can’t deliver the truth (it’s so far failed to protect the public from troubling online lead generation practices, for example. See our November 1, 2007 FTC filing). Yahoo!, Microsoft, Time Warner and others on the committee should lead–and not follow–advice from the IAB that will lead to prolonged political conflict–in Europe, in Congress, at the FTC and FCC, and with the incoming Administration.

Real governmental rules are required–including measures that effectively protect every consumer and also address vulnerable groups and sensitive marketing issues. The IAB’s old school Beltway mentality will likely give online advertisers a bad name. Where are the ad industry’s thoughtful leaders who can help steer the IAB in an honorable direction?

The Interactive Ad Bureau: Its Political Posture is a Liability for the Advertising Industry

On December 14, the head of the U.S. Interactive Advertising Bureau–Randall Rothenberg–wrote a commentary for the Wall Street Journal (“Facebook’s Flop” sub. required) that will be used by graduate students someday as an example of what shouldn’t be done to help an industry address a political crisis. Using old cliches, scare tactics, name-calling, the piece reflects a real failure on the part of the IAB to address an important policy issue that affects everyone–including families. It also shows an inability to recognize concerns about online privacy in an historic context. Such an approach may be useful for rallying some of the old guard. But more sophisticated advertisers and marketers will recognize that the online ad industry doesn’t benefit from embracing such an approach.

So instead of saying that there has long been a concern about online privacy, including for children, we are called “anti-business groups.” Instead of admitting that advertisers and marketers are shaping the new media system so it can better track and target us all, the IAB head claims “the consumer is in control.” Instead of admitting that it was the request made by my group and others for the FTC and the European Commission to investigate Facebook’s “Beacon” system, it says that it just took Moveon to force a (partial) retreat (anyone who has political savvy recognizes it was the combination of Moveon’s organizing, the raising of public policy concerns, and advertiser skittishness that led to the Facebook change). The commentary claims we are calling for “the banning of behaviorally-targeted ads.” But almost everyone else recognizes that we have called for meaningful privacy safeguards for behavioral and interactive marketing practices that would protect consumers.

Finally, the oldest canard in the business is used, claiming that without advertising all the “free” content online would disappear. “Advertisers are paying for it,” it is said. Nothing about how consumers ultimately pay for all this–including now their loss of data, privacy and autonomy.

Anyone with insight into where we are historically with interactive media and marketing should recognize that the privacy and marketing related issues must be honestly dealt with. Old style lobbying may show some muscle, but will backfire. Here’s hoping 2008 will bring the gift of better reflection at the IAB–to its officers, board members, and members.

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The news media and behavioral targeting connection

It’s long been a concern that so many news organizations–or their parent entities–have embraced behavioral targeting (and so many other types of online marketing techniques) without clear disclosure to users, readers and viewers. There should be stories explaining what’s going on, exposing the techniques used that threaten privacy, analysis on the implications to journalism, editorials supporting reform, etc. We have covered some of these issues in our book and on this blog. But as a reminder, we run an excerpt from a Tacoda want ad for online sales manager: “TACODA®, Inc. (www.tacoda.com) is the world’s largest and most advanced behavioral targeting advertising network… Major US media partners include Dow Jones, The New York Times Company, NBC Universal, … [and] USAToday.com.”

All the news that fit to click, indeed.

Google & the Public Interest Policy Pod People

They’re coming. The “Google Policy Fellows” to help staff an array of public interest groups and policy think-tanks. “As lawmakers around the world become more engaged on Internet policy,” says Google, “a robust and intelligent public debate around these issues becomes increasingly important…The Google Policy Fellowship program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues…Fellows will… work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more. Participating organizations… include: American Library Association, Cato Institute, Center for Democracy and Technology, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Education Foundation, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge.”

It’s wrong for public interest and consumer organizations to take Google’s money and especially provide a “Fellowship” in its name. We need to build more consumer advocacy capacity to address Google’s growing power, especially its threat to privacy. No matter what these groups say (and some already take money from Google; others receive broad media industry support), there are digital strings attached, as subtle as they may be. The Fellowship program is just another lobbying and PR effort coming from a company that has a broad policy agenda. Many of the groups above should be training people to represent the public versus companies such as Google, and other big online advertisers and new media conglomerates. Giving Google a say on the training of policy advocates, let alone a funding role, undermines the public interest movement.

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IAB creates new post: "SVP, Thought Leadership and Marketing."

As the IAB ramps up its political operation to defend the interactive marketing industry from consumer-friendly privacy safeguards, it has created a new senior position. The SVP for Thought Leadership and Marketing is… “to help drive the growth of interactive advertising through enhanced communications with marketers, agencies, and others about the power of interactive media to reach and influence consumers.” In another words, a seasoned PR hand. David Doty is now in that position; he came from Booz Allen Hamilton where he was Director of Corporate Branding and Creative Services.”

But what IAB requires is “thought leadership” that recognizes that interactive marketing can’t run a-muck. Consumer protections are required, as well as a socially responsible approach to digital advertising in a global environment.

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Cable’s 70/70 Rule & the Public Interest: Programming diversity is what should matter

Our friends and colleagues have worked for years to ensure that the monopolistic-run cable television industry be required to operate in a more competitive and–dare I say–democratic manner. So Bravo! to Media Access Project, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, and everyone else. But the focus of any FCC rules changes should be on how to ensure real programmatic diversity, including shows and channels owned and managed by women and people of color. If all we get is an a la carte system where one can merely pick and choose from the narrow content choices now offered us, then we will not be making real progress. How one should measure success of any cable TV regulatory change should be on what we see on the screen. That’s more important, in my opinion, than a focus on lowering cable rates (or offering new options for cable consumers to block programs and channels they find undesirable).

So as advocates and others consider policy changes, here’s what I suggest we consider. What rules are required so that there are new, unaffiliated, international, national, and local news channels available on cable systems? How can we foster independent programs and channels owned and operated by African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and other groups? What needs to be done to ensure that five to seven years from now, there’s channels reflecting the rich cultural and artistic experience of the country? And, finally, what rules can be enacted that will aid these new media outlets to become sustainable, cross-platform (online, mobile, TV) services? That will require they have access to the full-functionality of cable–and not be placed in some digital backwater.

Huffington Post and its Prius Ads: Paid by the Photo

Arianna Huffington was on a keynote plenary panel this week at the “adTech” interactive marketing conference in New York. In a discussion of video advertising online, Ms. Huffington, according to this post of the event, “gave the example of a program where she and readers at the Huffington Post shared photos of themselves and their Prius’. Huffington Post “got paid” for the program and Toyota gained substantial exposure from a community of brand enthusiasts.”

As more companies pay for a variety of “viral” and other marketing promotions, it will be important for full disclosure and transparency. We hope the Huf Post will lead the way in this regard.

UK trade magazine reports on Google’s “sheer dominance.”

key excerpts from New Media Age, 11/1/07. “NMA Report – Competition.” Greg Brooks. Sub. required:
“One of the biggest problems facing search engines is Google’s sheer dominance of the sector. How have the latest moves from Yahoo! and Microsoft affected this?

Google’s domination of the UK paid-search market has gone unbroken since AdWords burst onto the scene in 2000. Advertisers would like nothing better than to see some healthy competition for their search budgets. But six months since Yahoo! introduced Panama, and over a year since Microsoft launched AdCenter in the UK, Google’s grip is tighter than ever…
“Google’s lead in terms of volume continues to grow, as the latest statistics from Hitwise show (see graph). Agencies say it’s the only must-have for clients…

The emergence of Panama is a strong indication that a competitive market is driving improvements to relevancy and forecasting. But it remains to be seen if anyone can challenge Google’s position,” says Michael Stroud, head of online marketing at Lloyds TSB…

Daniel Kerzner, regional director for north-west Europe at Starwood Hotels, adds, “Google remains a solid, reliable volume driver for us. Its dominance is a potential threat to business, however, if it continues to exploit its lone position in the marketplace”…

…the figures don’t make a pretty picture for Google’s rivals. Hitwise data for September 2007 shows that Google handled 85.2% of all searches in the month, with Yahoo! on 4.91% combined, Microsoft own-brand search commanding 3.95% of search, and Ask.com down to 3.55%…

“AdCenter has tried to leapfrog Google with more targeting features to drive efficiency, but has left basics like attracting more customers behind,” says Paul Bongers, head of paid search at BT, which uses Zed to plan and buy its search campaigns. “You can have the greatest search engine in the world, but if the customers aren’t there it won’t matter…
So far the new features haven’t enabled Yahoo! and MSN to gain on Google, which has actually increased its dominance of UK searches

BBC Signs up with Doubleclick: Privacy out the window, along with Beeb staff?

It’s interesting to watch the tandem work of Google and Doubleclick, even prior to the proposed merger. Doubleclick was just signed-up by the BBC to handle its forthcoming interactive display paid advertising on BBC.com (the Beeb better explain to all its users what will happen with those digital crumpets placed on their computers–I mean cookies, pixels, and other digital spy techniques). Here’s how NMA magazine [sub required] reports it: “BBC Worldwide has appointed DoubleClick to handle display ads on BBC.com, following last week’s green light to allow advertising on the international site... It will also be responsible for the pre-roll advertising on BBC.com through its existing BBC World deal. DoubleClick will work with BBC Worldwide’s internal sales team…The ads will only be served to users outside of the UK…” (Doubleclick already works with the BBC, handling ads for BBC World and the Beeb’s magazine).

Last March, the BBC signed a deal with Google’s YouTube, calling it a “ground-breaking partnership.” Meanwhile, the BBC is drastically cutting staff and reducing news budgets, as it faces reduced public funding. The reduction in funds for the world’s premier public service programmer–and the staff cuts–is a story unto itself–which we will eventually address. But the BBC should not be permitted to endorse a business model for online marketing where its users–even if not UK citizens and residents—are tagged, tracked, targeted, and sold to the highest behavioral targeting bidder. Unless safeguards are imposed, online advertising could have an adverse impact on the diversity and integrity of the news. This deal should also behoove the BBC news staff to launch a major investigation into the Google and Doubleclick merger, inc. how such a merger will impact public affairs programming.

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Google Becomes a member of the Nielsen "family." Threats to our Privacy as we watch TV

Few readers may recall when Norman Lear’s “Mary Hartman” realized that she and her fellow patients at a psychiatric facility watched a Nielsen ratings-connected TV set. Lear’s critique that the TV rating system that has determined success for the TV business is deeply flawed and–frankly, crazy– is still true. But Google (and Doubleclick’s) move to monitor and analyze our viewing on TV and other platforms is just as insane–if we want to protect our privacy. “Google has been reporting millions of second-by-second data points to its TV Ads clients,” explains MediaDaily News. “Ultimately, Google expects TV’s interactive capabilities to improve to the point that it is generating the same kind of immediacy and backchannel as the Internet.” [from an interview with Mike Steib, director of Google TV Ads].

We doubt cable and DBS subscribers recognize that they are now involuntary members of the Nielsen/Google data tracking combine. Here’s how Multichannel News reports on the deal: “By combining Nielsen demographic data with aggregated set-top box data, Google plans to provide advertisers and agencies with comprehensive information…We have millions of set-top boxes that belong to EchoStar from which EchoStar is pulling data and is providing it to us for the Google TV Ad system: It’s a lot of data points,” Steib said…Advertisers can better understand exactly how their ad is performing and make near real-time changes to their TV advertising campaigns to deliver better ads to viewers, according to Google.

“One of the things we haven’t been able to provide to our advertisers to date, when we report back the very next day the impressions that they’ve received from the set-top boxes, we have not yet reported demographics and audience composition,” he said. “We are now going to be able to make that information available to our advertisers”…Google and Nielsen claim that as a result of their new partnership, this is the first time that advertisers and agencies will have such a level of detailed measurement available in a single place and at such a large scale.”

We hope Congress and the FTC will step in to prevent the entire TV viewing population from becoming involuntary drafted into the Nielsen/Google data collection, profiling, and targeting system.

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