Category: FTC

Death of Broadband Privacy in Venice? What’s the Deal with Joost & Viacom?

Reporters are hyping the new deal between Joost and Viacom. Missing from the discussion is the impact of the new video service on privacy and commercialism. According to Advertising Age (my bold):

“So far, Joost’s ad model includes five- to seven-second ads that pop up when certain videos are initiated and mid-roll video ads in videos more than five minutes long, the number of which are scaled pro rata to the length of the content. Wrigley, T-Mobile, Maybelline and Phillips are among the beta advertisers. The idea is to have a single advertiser sponsor a piece of content, but to give it multiple elements, Mr. Clark said.

Like other web ads, they’re interactive and let users click through for more info, e-mail offers and long-form messages. The service also touts what will be powerful targeting and reporting capabilities. Echoing Joost’s founders, Mr. Clark said, “We’re combining the best of the web with the best of TV.”

We hope Joost will clearly spell out what data is being collected and reported to Viacom and others. We don’t believe its privacy policy addresses what it will be providing, for example, its new partner Viacom. But services such as Joost should embrace privacy policies which fully disclose precisely the information provided to advertisers. Opt-in should also be the standard, once users are formally and proactively informed.

Joost update. Here’s how Joost plans to help marketers conduct precision targeting, according to Octagon Music blog: “For every user that downloads the Joost application, part of the registration process is to complete a user profile with typical demographic information. It’s this user profile that will be an advertiser’s dream. Imagine being able to target viewers by location, time of day, viewing habits, and other profile information to serve up the perfect ad… Friis and Zennstram believe this unlocked targeting power will command a premium in terms of dollars from advertisers, which will hopefully keep Joost up and running.”

Media industry watcher Jack Myers reports that “advertisers will be able to cherry pick users by location, time/date of viewing, viewing history and preferences, and even profiles of Joost members who opt-in. In the future both advertisers (and programmers) will have the flexibility to upload content themselves…”
Source: Why Joost Isn’t Just Your Average `YouTube Killer’. Abbey Klaassen. Advertising Age. Feb. 26, 2007 [sub. required]

Thank You, Fox’s Levinsohn. Did You Hear What He Said, FTC?

It always helps to have interactive ad industry leaders make the case for the public interest. So we are gratful to Fox Interactive’s Peter Levinsohn (MySpace, IGN) for telling the New York Times that [my bold] “We have more information about our users, I believe, than any other site on the Web today.” Levinsohn’s comment was to explain the importance of its new interactive advertising technology acquisition, Strategic Data Corporation (SDC). Here’s what Online Media Daily said about the deal:
“Fox Interactive is already taking steps to mine the wealth of personal information found on profile pages on MySpace and other sites to better target ads. “With SDC, we’ll be able to plug all that rich data into their ad optimization technology and be able to fine-tune our ad delivery on a much more targeted basis,” explained Burkart. She said Fox is already working with brand marketers to figure out what kinds of user data are most valuable to them.”

SDC’s technology helps deliver precision targeted marketing. As the new Fox acquisition explained on its site, SDC “automatically optimizes the selection of creative for each impression to maximize profitability by combining sophisticated statistical and predictive algorithms, demographic and geographic segmentation, and performance tracking. Our clients typically see network-wide (not just individual campaign) revenue increases of 50-150%. We are so confident of these results that we charge based on the actual increase in profit you measure… Using standard Intel-based servers, the software sustains real-time optimization of over 15-30 million impressions per server per day with a 1-2 millisecond response time.”

Source: “Fox Interactive Acquires Technology Ad Company.” Louise Story. New York Times. Feb. 23, 2007

“Fox Interactive Buys Strategic Data Corp., Plans Ad Targeting Upgrade.” Mark Walsh. Online Media Daily. Feb. 23, 2007

Rupert

We couldn’t resist this: “Fox Interactive Media (FIM)… announced today that it has completed the acquisition of interactive advertising technology company, Strategic Data Corporation (SDC)…SDC’s technology will enable FIM to deliver highly-targeted graphical performance-based advertising on literally billions of Web pages viewed each day across its growing network. Fox Interactive Media, which spans MySpace, IGN, Direct2Drive, AmericanIdol.com, AskMen.com and more, is among the most visited networks on the Internet with more than 135 million worldwide unique visitors each month and is the number one most viewed network in the U.S. with over 40 billion pages viewed each month…“We couldn’t be more pleased to join the Fox Interactive Media family,” said Richard Janssen, SDC CEO. “FIM is truly innovating how brands reach consumers in a socially networked world and we look forward to bringing our technologies and team to the effort.”

Paidcontent.org reports that SDC’s technologies provide “sophisticated statistical and predictive algorithms, demographic and geographic segmentation, and performance tracking…”

Source:
FOX INTERACTIVE MEDIA ACQUIRES INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING TECHNOLOGY COMPANY STRATEGIC DATA CORPORATION

Enhanced Media Network to Bring Hyper-targeted Ad Serving to Reality

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New Threats to Privacy: Interactive Ad Bureau (IAB) Hires D.C. Lobbyist

The interactive ad lobby–that includes most publishers of major newspapers, magazines and online outlets–is worried that consumer advocates might persuade Congress or the FTC to actually do something to protect digital privacy. Groups such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are alarmed that if consumers can actually control their data, the ability of digital marketers to collect, profile, track and target us will be threatened. So the IAB–which has a old and new media who’s who on its board–has brought in some political help. According to Online Media Daily:

“AIMING TO INCREASE ITS SWAY over government, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has opened a Washington, D.C. office and hired its first in-house lobbyist, Mike Zaneis…he and lobbyists from the Venable law firm have been talking with Congressional staffers on the IAB’s behalf. “We’ve been educating them on how the Internet works, and what the interactive advertising industry actually is and how it operates,” said Zaneis, who previously served as executive director of technology and e-commerce at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

Presumably, the IAB will be working alongside DC lobbyists for Google, Yahoo!, Time Warner and the like to ensure that our digital media platforms provide a direct connection to Madison Avenue’s data warehouses. But they should be ashamed for creating a business model where direct access to our data across countless online media properties needs to be defended by special interest lobbying tactics.

PS: We just saw the ClickZ story. It’s very telling what the new IAB DC lobbyist said:
“…Zaneis says his initial plan of is, “Putting together a public policy council, developing positions on key issues, and leveraging the contacts that I have on the Hill, and in the FTC and other places. And then it’s a take no prisoners attitude to advocate for our members.”

How long will the Federal Trade Commission wait before it decides to act to safeguard consumer privacy and protection online? Advocates will likely have to ask Congress to organize an oversight “Tech-ache” to prod the agency into some sort of action. Note this excerpt below as just one example of how the FTC is asleep at the interactive advertising/data collection `digital’ switch.

“Imagine the value to a national automaker of isolating a swath of people so ready to splurge on a fuel-friendly hybrid they’ve price shopped and maybe even placed an eBay bid to buy a Prius. Now, imagine if that auto advertiser could follow those folks around the web — from news sites to social-networking pages — serving up ads that remind them of the benefits of owning a hybrid car. It’s a pretty appealing prospect to marketers, and exactly what they will be able to do if Yahoo gets its way… “We’re actually in a fairly unique position to be able to take advantage … of the enormous data and insight we have on the largest online audience in the world,” Ms. Decker said in Yahoo’s year-end earnings call Jan. 23. “We can see what people are putting in their search strings. We can see what kinds of ads they click on. We can see what kinds of sites they were on prior to the site that they are currently on…”

from: The Right Ads at the Right Time — via Yahoo: Web Giant Looks to Offer Behavioral-targeting Tools Outside Its Own Properties
Abbey Klaassen. Advertising Age. Feb. 5, 2007 [subscription required]

Susan Decker, CFO, bio link.

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