Category: interactive advertising

Google’s Doubleclick Using Widgets to “give advertisers the ability to tap into the incredible power of potential brand evangelists”

Google’s Doubleclick division is working with social media and widget advertising company Gigya so marketers can “integrate a viral component into any campaign to allow consumers to “snag” or “grab” the ad onto their personal homepage or social network page.” We think the Doubleclick release is very revealing. So here are some choice excerpt excerpts:

“Widgets are part of a fundamental change within the online marketing arena,” said Ari Paparo, vice president of advertiser products for DoubleClick. “Widget Ads provide audiences with the ability for self-expression and identification with well-loved brands while providing marketers the benefits of virality and engagement along with the measurability of traditional online channels.”…

“Incorporating viral functionality helps give advertisers the ability to tap into the incredible power of potential brand evangelists,” said Ben Pashman, vice president of business development with Gigya,…enabling great creative to enter a user’s social circle, where it may become an even more powerful, user-endorsed ad unit.”

Widget Ads may be distributed in a multitude of ways including branded websites, word-of-mouth outreach and even through another rich media ad… integration with the industry-standard DART platform allows for valuable Widget Ad metrics including impressions, interactions, video metrics, viral “grabs” for different social networks, and reach and frequency…”

Statement on FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act legal action against Sony/Additional Privacy Policies are Required

Statement of Dr. Kathryn C. Montgomery, who led the campaign for the passage of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), commenting on the FTC children’s privacy lawsuit announced today against Sony BMG Music Entertainment

I applaud the FTC’s actions to enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The government’s lawsuit against SONY sends a strong signal to the online industry that this law must be taken seriously. COPPA was designed to protect children under the age of 13 from unfair data collection and manipulation by online marketers. Congress passed the law ten years ago to establish a clear set of safeguards and principles that were built into the foundation of the emerging digital marketplace. However, in recent years, online data collection has become increasingly sophisticated, expanding into a variety of new platforms — from social networks to mobile phones to interactive games — that are now central tools in young peoples’ their lives. In the new administration of President-elect Barack Obama, both the FTC and Congress must support additional policies that will extend COPPA’s mandate and create privacy protections for all children under the age of 18.

Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D, is Professor of Communication at American University in Washington, DC.

Tales of Behavioral Targeting: Merging Offline Databases with Online User Tracking

The folks at the Federal Trade Commission better toughen up its proposed privacy principles. And Congress and the new Obama Administration, of course, will need to step in. That’s because the online marketing behavioral targeting industry is rushing to push the data collection from unprotected consumer digital envelope. Take, for example, Datran Media. In an interview, a representative explains “Datran’s unique advantage is in the fact that we have figured out a way to aggregate more audience data than anyone else…We derive our behavioral and lifestyle data from real online and offline requests for information or transactions, and obtain our household-level demographics and interests from the most informative and accurate direct marketing databases available. We feel that the combination is unprecedented and unbeatable in the marketplace.”

On Datran’s website it explains to potential clients that its Aperture product “is the first and only advertising solution to leverage the power of offline demographic data – at the household level – with online display advertising to help identify, reach and define your ideal customers – no matter where they are on the Web.” Describing a “smarter way” to reach consumers, the company explains that:

  • Aperture is the only advertising solution that uses household demographic information to precisely target banner ads online, and report on the ads’ audience AND responders.
  • Aperture defines your customers by WHO they are and WHAT they do.
  • Retargeting capabilities bring customers back to your site with an added level of insight into who they are.
  • Leveraging 100 million + demographic profiles combined with proprietary transaction-based behavioral intelligence, Aperture is capable of delivering greater consumer insights than ever before.

Aperture provides deep insights into the effectiveness and reach of your campaigns – by the view and click – so you can make the best business, media mix and creative decisions for your brand.”

The company’s targeting capabilities are also explained:

“Using Datran Media’s proprietary 100 million+ household level profiles, Aperture can layer any of following criteria to define your ideal customer and target your ads directly to them anywhere they go on the web.

  • Household
  • Gender
  • Household Size
  • Number of Adults
  • Number of Children Present
  • Renter/Owner
  • Length of Residence
  • Marital Status

The company can also “layer” in such targeting parameters as one’s neighborhood [“Number of Adults, Median Number of Children Present, Median Annual Income,” etc.] as well as consumer “behavior” [“auto, insurance, personal finance, dating and romance,” etc.].

As we said to the FTC and the industry, just because technology permits you to collect data and target individuals, doesn’t mean one should do it without the complete prior informed consent of users. Industry leaders need to own up to what they are doing, and support the kind of privacy protections a digital democracy requires.

Outside DoJ Expert Litvak on Why Google/Yahoo Deal was Opposed: “Google had a monopoly”

From American Lawyer Daily’s interview with Sandy Litvak (the outside expert DoJ asked to review the now scuttled Google/Yahoo search ad combine). Excerpt: “Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. called off their joint advertising agreement just three hours before the Department of Justice planned to file antitrust charges to block the pact, according to the lawyer who would have been lead counsel for the government. Sanford “Sandy” Litvack left Hogan & Hartson in September to consult for the department’s antitrust division on a possible court challenge to the Web giants’ agreement. The companies abandoned the deal in November after the Justice Department informed them it would seek to block the deal. “We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day,” says Litvack, who rejoins Hogan & Hartson today. “We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.”…The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Litvack tells the Am Law Daily in one of his first interviews since the companies canned the venture. Section 1 bans agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. Section 2 makes it unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade.

“It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly,” Litvack says.


source: Hogan’s Litvack Discusses Google/Yahoo. Nat Raymond. TheAmLaw Daily. Dec. 2, 2008

AT&T and a leader of its funded Privacy Forum Raises Questions About the Need for Safeguards

Those busy data collection bees at AT&T–including its funded Future of Privacy Forum co-head–appear to be working to undermine the growing movement supporting consumer privacy protection. According to a news report, a meeting was held last week at the University of Oklahoma on privacy issues. Forum co-director Christopher Wolf, whose law firm represents AT&T, is reported as placing behavioral targeting in a favorable light. Instead of calling for legislation, Wolf suggested that companies should create videos and other technical approaches to serve as supplemental privacy policies.

Also speaking at the event was Keith Epstein, “AT&T’s chief public policy and regulatory compliance counsel.” Here are the last two grafs of the story: There is no legislation pending in Washington regarding online privacy, Epstein said. A legislative solution if it did exist, he said, would be inflexible.

Epstein favored guidelines instead, and said the FTC should be issuing industry standards by the fall of next year.

AT&T’s stance on privacy legislation to protect U.S. consumers is troubling. It will have its deep-packet inspection, all-seeing ISP broadband clout, to monitor and then target each subscriber. AT&T should make it clear it supports legislation which provides real consumer protection (opt-in, transparency, control, extra protections on health, financial and youth data). Where is the privacy leadership at AT&T?

Google’s “Policy Fellowships”–Self-Serving Efforts to Help Ward Off Privacy and Online Marketing Protections?

Google has selected 15 organizations for its 2009 “Google Policy Fellowship.” Fellows are funded by Google and will work on “Internet and technology policy” issues over the summer. Take a look at some of the groups it selected and what they say the projects will be (and their positions on Internet issues). And then ask–is Google working to help undermine the public interest in communications policy? Think online privacy and interactive marketing as you read these following excerpts from a number of these groups:

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public interest organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace…Electronic privacy: CEI seeks to reframe the online privacy debate in terms of the potential benefits to consumers of greater information sharing, transparency, and marketing. Fellows will explore competing privacy policies and how they are evolving as the public grows more aware of privacy risks. This research will also encompass privacy-enhancing technologies that empower consumers to safeguard personal data on an individualized basis.”

“The Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) is a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy… Online Advertising & Privacy Policy Issues: PFF defends online advertising as the lifeblood of online content and services, particularly for the “long tail,” and emphasizes a layered approach to privacy protection, including technological self-help, user education, industry self-regulation, and enforcement of existing laws, as a less restrictive—and generally more effective—alternative to increased regulation.”

“The Technology Policy Institute is a think tank that focuses on the economics of innovation, technological change, and related regulation in the United States and around the world… Privacy and data security: benefits and costs to consumers of online information flows, and the effects of alternative privacy policies on consumers and the development of the Internet.”

“The Cato Institute’s research on telecommunications and information policy advances the Institute’s vision of free minds and free markets within the information policy, information technology, and telecommunications sectors of the American economy…Information Policy: Examining how increased data sensing, storage, transfer, processing, and use affect human values like privacy, fairness and Due Process, personal security, and seclusion. Articulating complex technological, social, and legal issues in ordinary language. Promoting the policies that protect these human values consistent with a free society and maximal human liberty.”

Google is also funding fellowships at other groups, including the partially Google funded Center for Democracy and Technology. The CDT connected Internet Education Foundation (which helps run the Congressional Internet Caucus, where Google is a corporate Advisory member) also will house a Google Fellow. There are a few public interest groups hosting Fellows that have an independent track record, including Media Access Project, EFF, and Public Knowledge. But awarding Fellowships to groups which will help it fight off responsible privacy and online marketing safeguards provides another insight into Google’s own political agenda.

Google’s YouTube– New Sponsored Search for Advertisers

The world’s most powerful search engine and online ad company has introduced a new feature on YouTube. Here’s an excerpt from the AP story: “… YouTube is letting advertisers promote their commercial clips alongside the search results at the Internet’s most popular video site… advertisers can now tie their commercials to specific words entered into YouTube’s search box…Some clips that might not rank high in the primary results of a YouTube search theoretically could appear on the first page as a “sponsored” video if a bidder is willing to pay a high enough price for a click and offers compelling content.”

source: YouTube channels Google with search-driven ads. Michael Liedtke. AP. November 12, 2008.

AT&T Positions itself for its (hoped for) Digital Ad & Data Collection-driven Era [Attention: Future of Privacy Forum group]

AT&T, like other companies, understands that online advertising is an intrinsic part of the broadband era business model (along with subscriber charges, transaction fees, etc.). A number of reporters, charming cynics as they may be, are convinced that AT&T’s recent calls for some type of opt-in is merely a form of Google bashing (it’s really Google envy!). But, as this trade story describes below, AT&T wants to better cash in on online ad revenues). It underscores why Congress must enact opt-in rules and other safeguards to govern ISP data collection, profiling, and targeting–especially across platforms. It also suggests a flaw in how the new AT&T supported Future of Privacy Forum envisions safeguards. They are quoted in The New York Times saying they want “to move the debate beyond opt-in versus opt-out,”–meaning self-regulation would rule–or ruin–the data driven day. Here’s an excerpt from CED magazine on AT&T’s new restructuring plan so Internet ads can play a more prominent role:

“AT&T’s Advertising & Publishing business unit has been renamed AT&T Advertising Solutions and is responsible for all of AT&T’s advertising sales, according to the company, to take advantage of advertising opportunities that cut across print, Internet, TV and wireless. Meanwhile, AT&T’s Yellowpages.com business unit has been renamed AT&T Interactive. That operation gets expanded responsibility for the development, management and delivery of online and mobile advertising products across all of AT&T’s media platforms. AT&T Interactive is responsible for online and mobile advertising inventory and offerings.”

source: “AT&T realigns ad operations.” Brian Santo. CEDMagazine.com November 20, 2008.

Online Ad Privacy Watch: Google Adding DoubleClick to its AdSense System

Policymakers will need to closely examine the role DoubleClick will play in collecting, analyzing, and helping profile consumers (whether they are online, seeing a video, or using a mobile device, for example). Here’s an email Google is reported sending out this week. My bold:

“We understand that the recent economic turmoil has created a lot of uncertainty in the lives of AdSense publishers. During these difficult times, we’re continuing to invest in innovations that improve publisher monetization and advertiser value in the content network.

We’re focusing on further developing our product offerings and boosting ad performance for publishers. We recently announced advancements in AdSense for search and experiments to make ads more effective. We’re bringing DoubleClick technologies to AdSense publishers, and we’ll continue to launch new products and features. We’re also continuing to improve our offerings for AdWords advertisers, making it easier for them to target the Google content network. Features for advertisers, such as the new display ad builder, are designed to improve ad performance on AdSense publisher sites.

We’ll keep driving technological progress, but our best asset will always be our publisher partners. The strength of AdSense lies in the value of the content you bring to users and the quality of the sites you bring to advertisers. Our success is tied to yours. We look forward to partnering with you for the long term, and remain dedicated to helping you succeed.”

Google Expanding its Online Video Advertising via Rich Media Applications and Commissions to Ad Agencies

Along with its new research fund for academics and its work to harness neuromarketing, Google is now luring more advertisers to run ads on YouTube and its content network. Here’s an excerpt from the UK’s New Media Age [a terrific] trade publication: “Google is to introduce agency commission for video advertising to encourage increased investment and progress within the sector. The company says it will launch an “incentivisation programme” to show Google’s commitment in developing video advertising opportunities across its network, including YouTube…Google is… also working with rich-media specialist Tangozebra, which it acquired as part of the DoubleClick deal, to develop new ad formats…

Jonathan Gillespie, Google head of media solutions and YouTube in the UK, said, “We believe that online video specifically is going to be the next stage of evolution in the display marketplace.”

source: Google to introduce agency commission on video ads. Will Cooper. NMA. October 31, 2008