Category: network neutrality

The new “Digital Advertising Alliance” self-reg plan. See if it tells consumers what its sponsor ad groups really say to each other. That they track and target your “digital footprint”

On Monday, the new self-regulation magical “icon” that is designed to make the online ad industry’s privacy problems disappear will be unveiled.  A new group called the “Digital Advertising Alliance” will unveil the icon-based plan–all timed to help head-off the kinds of protections and safeguards consumers require.  The current financial crisis affecting tens of millions of Americans require that government and big business groups do more than pay digital lip service to consumer protection.

As a kind of litmus test for the new self-regulation effort, see if the icon and the information connected to it really informs you about how data on you is collected and used for profiling, tracking and targeting. For example, last week, the Interactive Advertising Association (IAB), one of the key backers of the new Alliance, released a guide to targeting consumers at the local level.  Here’s excerpts of what they say.  See if that little icon is being honest when you click it.  Of course, we really require rules that eliminate the kind and amount of data that can be collected on you and you family and friends in the first place–as well as honest disclosure on the process.  Note as well that all that data on you is expensive–and others are cashing in on information that belongs to you!  From the new “Targeting Local Markets” guide:

Explicit profile data Targeting. definition–
Explicit data is “registration quality data” collected either online or offline. For online registration data, the user has certain attributes in his or her registration profile at a particular site or service, and that data is associated with the user’s Web cookie or some sort of audience database when the user next logs in. Offline registration data includes the sorts of data held in the massive offline direct response industry databases built up over the last several decades. These are then matched to a user online when that user logs in somewhere that is a partner of the data company. The site at which the user logs in, usually an online mail or similar site, sends the name/email combination to the data company, which then makes the match and sends back data…pricing–In general, first party data commands a far more variable premium than third party data…Third party data is usually available in much larger quantities, and yet there is often a fee of anywhere between $0.50 to $2.00 or more paid to the data provider by the ad seller – thus increasing the cost of goods sold (COGS) on the ad, and therefore increasing the price…

Behavioral Targeting (Implicit profile data Targeting)-definition-
Behavioral Targeting is the ability to serve online advertising based on profiles that are inferred from an individual user’s technical footprint and viewing behavior…As the medium has grown from a “browsing” experience to interactional so have the levels of information gathered. Newer forms of information include the data collected about influences, social preferences through social networks and an individual user’s content created online…The data is often gathered in real-time and can be used for real-time decision-making so that relevant advertising can be delivered dynamically to an individual user during their online session…Behaviorally targeted advertising commands a higher price because of targeted placement versus general run-of-site (ROS) advertising…Behavioral Targeting can be highly accurate when the user is leaving a digital footprint of their activities as they move through the Web.

Google: Creating a “dynasty” in online data ad targeting

From the Connected Marketing Week in SF, via ClickZ:  Google is simultaneously attempting to fill the role of ad exchange, ad network, DSP (through its Invite Media acquisition), and media agency…Michael Rubenstein, president of AppNexus and the former head of Google’s ad exchange efforts, said Google has been admirably fair and transparent. But he said that could change.”Google is putting together the pieces to form a dynasty,” he said. “So far they’re behaving pretty well as far as keeping the ecosystem open to everybody, probably because they need to. But we’ll see what happens over time as they accumulate more market power.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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

CDD Urges Regulators to Protect Consumer Privacy in Comcast/NBCU deal

The Center for Digital Democracy will ask both the FCC and FTC to ensure that consumer privacy is protected as part of the regulatory review of the Comcast/NBCU partnership.  Comcast is currently deploying interactive TV applications, including for advertising, on its cable systems.   The nation’s largest cable company and broadband ISP  has played a leading role in developing next-generation “advanced advertising” services through the Canoe Ventures interactive TV cable consortium, as well as with CableLabs (Comcast chair Brian Roberts is the chair of the board of CableLabs, the industry’s R&D center).  For advanced advertising, information on household viewing, including from individuals, will be collected from set-top boxes that can be combined with outside databases to form viewer ad targeting profiles.   Highly personal ads will be created, practically instantaneously, for real-time delivery based on these profiles. Cable and other video providers are creating a “real-time decision-making system” for marketing that analyzes user data–including income, ethnicity, and viewing and behavior patterns–to help determine the precise ad to be delivered. Comcast is reportedly planning  “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… having a massive 500 Terabytes of storage, would then feed up to a database even broader in scope operated by Canoe Ventures…”

As the nation’s biggest “video provider” and “largest residential Internet service provider,” Comcast has access to detailed financial information on its TV and broadband subscribers.  It also has a treasure trove of consumer data on viewing behaviors online and with TV.  Comcast can also use its dominate position as the leading high-speed ISP and cable TV provider to extract additional consumer information from its programming partners.   Regulators will need to ensure effective safeguards on network neutrality, programming access and competition, and consumer privacy—especially for “advanced advertising.”

CDD also will ask competition authorities to review Comcast’s relationship with Canoe Ventures, and its implications on content diversity.
Some Background:

http://www.comcastmediacenter.com/media/news-releases-detail.html?content_item_id=161;

http://www.comcastspotlight.com/sites/Default.aspx?pageid=7680&siteid=62&subnav=3

http://www.canoe-ventures.com/;

http://www.cablelabs.com/projects/dpi/;

http://www.experianmarketingservices.com/capabilities_digitaladvertising.php;

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=183658&site=cdn;

http://www.multichannel.com/article/161894-Comcast_TV_Warehouse_To_Collect_STB_Clicks.php;

http://www.screenplaysmag.com/corporate/sigma/;

http://www.comcast.com/corporate/about/pressroom/corporateoverview/corporateoverview.html

Our new Journal of Adolescent Health article on the Youth Obesity Epidemic and Digital Marketing

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.

Network Neutrality, a Narrowed Internet and Digital TV [Attention DoJ, FTC & FCC]

It appears that the network neutrality fight now also must be focused on how new TV sets are connected to the Internet.  A narrow, closed universe, of digital lite applications are to be part of the new high definition television universe, according to Variety.  For example, new TV’s connect to a version of the Internet but haven’t been “built for full-fledged Web browsing.”   But these sets “will come pre-installed with targeted applications for specific websites, somewhat like iPhone apps.” [our emphasis]  Some 50 million people are predicted to have these Net-lite sets by 2013.

Variety explains that:  Indeed, apps are seen as the keys to success with Web-enabled TV. There are no plans for a central app store, but analysts say they wouldn’t be surprised to see one. For now manufacturers can “push” new apps onto TVs but viewers can’t add any themselves.  This puts manufacturers in the new position of deciding which sites gain access to their customers’ screens, and there is already talk that they are contemplating selling such access via revenue-sharing deals. 

The Obama Administration has been a strong supporter of network neutrality.  It should challenge this threat to competition and new threat designed to narrow the Internet.  Beyond concerns on openness and content diversity, it’s worth noting that some in the TV industry see the deliver of Internet services via TV’s a way to expand the impact of commercials and ads (since online video ad can’t be fast-forwarded or easily skipped).  These Net-enabled devices also raise important privacy and consumer protection issues.  Notes Variety, “[T]he new technology also could add power to an advertiser’s message, with consumers able to click a link and instantly learn more about a product — and with ads being better targeted based on a person’s viewing and browsing history.”

source:  Television’s killer app: New HD TVs equipped with internet connection.  Chris Morris.  Variety. August 14, 2009.

Technology Policy Institute Spins the Privacy Debate in D.C.–Group funded by Some of the Biggest Data Collection Companies

Today, the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) is holding a Hill forum on privacy and the Internet.  The group’s announcement for the event states that “More privacy, however, would mean less information, less valuable advertising, and thus fewer resources available for producing new low-priced services.  It is this tradeoff that Congress needs to take into account as it considers new privacy legislation.”

What an absurd, reductionistic, and intellectually-dishonest claim.  First, this group is funded by some of the largest companies engaged in behavioral data collection and also fighting meaningful privacy policies.   That includes Google and Time Warner.  TPI’s other funders involved in some form of data collection and targeted interactive marketing include AT&T, Cisco, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and Verizon.  Rep. Cliff Stearns, the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on the Communications, Technology, and the Internet is speaking at the event: that committee is currently drafting privacy legislation to protect consumers.  Panel speakers include TPI supporters Google and Comcast.  The lone privacy group on the panel, CDT, is funded by Google and others.  One academic on the panel also works for a high-tech consulting company.  The other panel academic has done fine work on social networks and privacy.

What makes TPI’s posturing absurd, beyond its funding conflicts, is the current economic crisis.  Consumer privacy laws are required to ensure that our financial, health and other personal transactions online are conducted in a responsible manner.  Anyone–or group–who believes that we can’t have both privacy and a robust online marketplace is out of touch.

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]

Time Warner’s AOL Spin-off: How the Failure to Require Network Neutrality (Open Access) Led to a Failed Mega-Media Merger

News that Time Warner will spin-off AOL should also be analyzed in the context of the network neutrality debate.   AOL would never have had to pursue merging with Time Warner if the Clinton FCC had supported its call–backed by many consumer groups–for “open access” to broadband.  Denied the ability to migrate its successful telephone/common carrier-based business model to cable broadband by the FCC, AOL had no choice but to buy its way into the cozy cable industry club.  Here’s what Steve Case, then president of AOL, said at the National Press Club in 1998, as covered by my CDD:

“Government,” as he told the National Press Club in October 1998, “has a responsibility to preserve an open playing field—to preserve the openness, innovation and competition that are at the heart of the Internet….” Nor did Case shrink from suggesting that regulation was the key to untangling the broadband puzzle. “Significant challenges currently face regulators in the communications realm,” he conceded. “There is currently one set of policies that governs telecommunications, and another governing cable. These legal, policy and regulatory frameworks have little to do with each other….” Thus it was the government’s responsibility, Case concluded, to see that the cable broadband environment conformed to the “openness, competition and rapid innovation” that is the very “DNA” of the Internet. “The bottom line,” Case insisted, “is that competition in all ‘last mile facilities’ should remain open so that consumers have the same kind of choices in broadband that they do in narrowband.”

If the Clinton FCC, then under Chairman William Kennard, had supported open access, we (including the many Time Warner and AOL investors who lost considerable sums) may have avoided further media consolidation and the wreck which became AOL Time Warner.  It’s a history lesson the in-coming FCC chair and others should review.