Category: Yahoo!

AAAA Letter to DoJ on Microsoft/Yahoo Deal: `Mad’ Merger Men & Women Missing Some Truth in Advertising

The 4A’S advertising trade and lobby organization sent a letter to the Department of Justice yesterday supporting the Microsoft/Yahoo search merger deal.  Among the five signatories from some of the biggest and most powerful ad companies was the head of the Publicis Groupe. But missing from the `approve this deal’ letter was any acknowledgment that Publicis is a partner of Microsoft–something we and other consumer groups have asked the DoJ to investigate as part of its review.

The recent deal between Microsoft and Publicis includes the sale of Razorfish, combined online ad activities and also data sharing.   In addition, Microsoft is expected to own 3% of Publicis after the deal closes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The letter to the DoJ should have disclosed this and other conflicts of interest.

Yahoo tells Advertisers: “We even know their online user behaviour and when they are ready to buy” [Annals of Behavioral Targeting]

Via Yahoo’s UK site:

Precision is where the real value lies. We know what our users are interested in. We also know their demographics, geographics and psychographics. We even know their online user behaviour and when they are ready to buy. So we can find you whoever you fancy and you won’t be bothered by anyone you don’t.

The “Hidden Persuaders” returns with the growing role of Neuromarketing: “Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subsconscious” [Annals of Mass Micro-Persuasion]

As we have explained to policymakers in the US and EU, the growing use of neuroscience techniques requires government scrutiny and regulatory safeguards. Even political campaigns appear to be using such methods.  No one should be permitted, in my opinion, to devise any public effort that is designed to deliberately influence the unconscious part of our brain.

Here’s an except from a research paper by a Nielsen backed neuromarketing firm called Neurofocus.   The paper is “Absorption:  How Messages Morph into Meaning And Value in The Mind,” and was written by Dr. A. K. Pradeep.  [published September 2008]

Engagement brings you to the threshold. Absorption carries you beyond, to the state where your message or other material has been fully taken in by the consumer’s brain... Full absorption is also when your message or materials or retail environment, etc. return the highest rate of impact and value for your investment. But neuroscientific research demonstrates that you cannot, and will not, reach that goal consistently and most effectively unless and until you understand how the brain actually functions, and you shape your messages/material /environment accordingly.

For example, as I cited above, we have identified 67 specific ‘best practices’ that should be implemented when words and images are presented on a screen (any screen, from a TV or PC to a mobile phone or movie theater). They are the result of advanced neurological research into various brain functions, and especially research that has delved into the mysteries of diseases like Alzheimer’s, and brain conditions like ADD/ADHD, obsessive/compulsive behavior, and bipolar disorder.

Follow these best practices, give the brain what it wants and likes most, and you stand the best chance of success for your brand and your investment. Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subconscious, where we can measure them for their effectiveness at the level devoid of any ‘outside’ contaminating influences like education, language, cultural ethnicity or other factors.





What unites Google & Microsoft?—Advancing Behavioral Targeting!

via New Media Age [excerpt]:

AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo are among six industry players to come together for an event to educate the market about behavioural targeting.  The invite-only event on 29 September at Microsoft’s offices is targeted at decision-makers within agencies and clients.

Google, Specific Media and AudienceScience are also involved.

Zuzanna Gierlinska, Microsoft Advertising’s head of Microsoft Media Network… who helped steer the initiative, said the group wanted to help brands feel more confident about behavioural targeting.

“We wanted to get these providers together and take what’s currently been talked about broadly in the industry to the next level,” she said…

The event will cover subjects such as the benefits of behavioural targeting to users and the role of creative agencies.

Online giants unite to offer behavioural targeting tips.  Suzanne Bearne.  New Media Age.  27 August 2009.  sub required

Microsoft Extends Behavioral Targeting to Mobile [Bing Will be Ringing & Tracking & Profiling]

Read this excerpt from the Microsoft Advertising announcement released today.  And ask if your privacy is really protected when they use your search data to target you over mobile devices for “financial services,” “lifestyles,” and other “behavioral segments.”

Today we launched our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solution, which means all of the powerful behavioral targeting options, segments and categories previously only available on our online properties are now available to buyers of our mobile display inventory as well.

Mobile behavioral targeting enables advertisers to reduce advertising waste and maximize the impact and ROI of their mobile campaigns by targeting consumers who have already demonstrated an interest in specific product categories. Over one hundred behavioral segments across popular advertiser categories such as Automotive, Financial Services, Health, Lifestyle, Life Stages, News and Entertainment, Retail, Technology and Travel are available for purchase.

How does Microsoft measure behavior?

Microsoft Behavioral Targeting works by anonymously tracking behaviors of users and classifying these users into unique segments using information from the following data sources:

. PC Web keyword search behavior from Bing Search

. PC Web Site visits to various sites across the Microsoft network

. Microsoft network data (i.e. Hotmail newsletters, Xbox subscription data)

. Profile data from Windows Live

With Microsoft Mobile Behavioral Targeting, data from these sources and others is factored together along with its relevancy to create hundreds of unique, specific segments. Within these niches are the consumers who are most likely to be receptive to your message. Your mobile ads are served only to users in your desired segments, enabling you to refine your reach and increase your campaign’s performance. Simple yet powerful, Behavioral Targeting is one of the most effective and efficient forms of mobile advertising available today.

Here at Microsoft we understand that preserving consumer trust is essential to the success of our business. Microsoft maintains a strong focus on protecting customers’ privacy and adheres to high privacy standards. Our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solutions do not utilize personally identifiable information (like name, address or phone number).

Microsoft/Yahoo: Regulators in U.S. and EU Must Ask–How will the Deal Really Protect Privacy, Serve Consumers & Promote Competition

The Center for Digital Democracy will ask regulators (in both the U.S. and EU) to closely– and skeptically– examine the Microsoft/Yahoo deal, including a thorough analysis of the proposed data collection, privacy and online ad-related business practices.  This agreement basically merges the Microsoft and Yahoo search platforms.  Instead of competing ad sales teams for “premium” search, Yahoo becomes the “exclusive” agent; the Bing search platform serves both MSN and Yahoo.  There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies.  We are concerned that this agreement is merely an initial step in what will eventually be the complete integration of Microsoft and Yahoo (including mobile, display, ad exchanges, research and development, etc.).  Both Microsoft and Yahoo understand that to compete in today’s online advertising marketplace, search and display marketing (including data collection, analysis, and targeting) must be closely linked.

What we are now witnessing is the emergence of a global digital advertising duopoly:  Google and Microsoft/Yahoo. While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.  [Regulators in both the U.S. and the EU helped set the stage for this Microsoft/Yahoo deal when they approved without conditions Google’s takeover of DoubleClick –which CDD and others opposed].

Regulators will have to demonstrate to both consumers and search advertisers that they will actually benefit from this proposed deal:  will it really reduce the cost of search ads, bring tangible financial gains to consumers, and truly protect our privacy?

A Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal will Raise Privacy and Competition Issues [Annals of Behavioral Targeting Mergers]

Microsoft and Yahoo!  should expect privacy and consumer groups to vigorously press regulators to closely and skeptically examine any deal–and at the very least urge them to impose a series of tough conditions on data collection and ad practices.  This digital duo will not get a free data collection pass from privacy and consumer groups, even if a new combination would provide much needed competition to Google.  Microsoft and Yahoo have created elaborate data collection services across platforms and applications, including for behavioral targeting.  They have competing ad targeting businesses in search, display and mobile, for example.  Both companies operate leading ad exchanges (where our profile data is bought and sold like food commodities). They also have competing ad targeting research and development efforts. Beyond the US, there are important competition and privacy issues for the EU as well.

A merger that further concentrates control by a dwindling very few over the digital marketing and advertising business illustrates how quickly consolidation has emerged as a principal and worrisome feature of the Internet era.

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]

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.