broadband video – Page 6 – Digital Destiny

IAB’s Response to Calls for Consumer Privacy Rules: Hire More Lobbyists to Protect the “Wild West” of Data Collection & Ad Targeting

Granted, the IAB’s Washington, D.C. lobbying shop, opened last year, is a small operation. Now the IAB is in the process of hiring a second person for the office. No doubt IAB wants to protect the data collection and micro-targeting digital turf of its members. Former Tacoda and Time Warner exec. Dave Morgan perhaps revealed why the political stakes are so high for IAB members such as Google, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, CBS, NY Times, Washington Post, etc. in Media Post. As Morgan explained, “.. Everybody now knows that data is the fuel for growth. Everyone is starting to mine it and make it available to third parties…The big four (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOLâ€™s Platform A) are all opening up their networks and systems to leverage third-party data; so are the ad servers like WPPâ€™s 24/7 Real Media; and so are the ad networks…Weâ€™re moving into a wild, wild west in monetizing real-time marketing data, and weâ€™re going to need many more people that know how to do this…As we see this data take on more value and play a bigger role in our industry, the public policy implications are going to become much more pronounced.”

MySpace expands ability for marketers to track and target "community" members

MySpace has launched what it calls its “community builder platform for [the] advertising community.” Here’s what they say it does (our emphasis):

“The new platform gives MySpace advertisers the ability to build, maintain and customize brand profiles while also providing guaranteed valuable analytics to help them gauge campaign performance and make real-time adjustments to maximize effectiveness. The platform is currently being beta tested by Deep Focus…

â€œCommunity Builder allows our clients to connect with potential brand evangelists in an unprecedented way,â€ said Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus. â€œThe flexible platform provides access to solutions and value propositions that enable brands to engage with a new generation of consumers and the freedom to update and manage communities in real-time. Itâ€™s a powerful tool that can help build community literally — and figuratively.â€

The Community Builder advertising platform will be available in the US and builds upon MySpace’s industry leading advertising model, which includes customized communities, multi-platform integrated marketing campaigns, and the new advertising platforms HyperTargeting and SelfServe which empower users such as small business owners, bands, and politicians to purchase, create and analyze the performance of ads throughout the MySpace network.”

Red Herring reports that “… Community Builder…allows marketers to analyze the impact of their online ad effort and respond to it by doing things like updating blogs, studying finely tuned traffic data, changing videos, shifting ads, or testing messages…â€œOne of the major complaints about social network ads has been the metrics, as marketers complain that they have no return on investment to show for their campaigns,â€ said Ian Schafer… “This gives us 24/7 access to the process of building communities.”

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Randall Rothenberg of the IAB cries digital wolf

Mr. Rothenberg, head of the trade group that represents interactive marketers, is in a tizzy because privacy, consumer advocates, and some lawmakers in the U.S. and EU advocate public policies that would empower citizens and consumers to have greater control over their data. Groups such as my CDD also want online marketers to inform users about the range and intent of data collection taking place. Anyone who has studied the online ad industry and is following it should be disturbed by many of its developments and directions.

There needs to be a serious and honest debate about all this–and rules enacted to protect the public. As more people realize the dimensions of the interactive marketing system and its implications, there will be a raising protest. We expect that when the EU’s Article 29 Working Party, made up of data privacy commissioners, issues its report on behavioral targeting, it will be an informed and thoughtful discussion of what must be done. Given the henny-penny approach Mr. Rothenberg has embraced to fight off consumer protection safeguards, we assume he will ask Congress to formally break diplomatic relations with `old’ Europe!

This is a serious issue, with ramifications affecting consumer welfare in a number of areas, including information they receive about pharmaceutical products, personal finances (such as mortgages) and with our children and adolescents. As I’ve said, we recognize the vital importance of advertising for the online medium. But it must be transparent, respect privacy, and operate fairly. The global digital ecosystem must evolve, as much as possible, in the most open and democratic manner.

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Yahoo! wants politicians to use Behavioral Targeting to target voters–Privacy and voter manipulation ethics ignored

Yahoo! is urging elected political officials and campaigns to use the arsenal of online advertising tools, despite the questions such dubious techniques raise on privacy and other consumer protection issues. Here’s an excerpt from a Yahoo! VP for political ads piece urging pols to embrace behavioral targeting. From Politics magazine online:

“Use the Internet as a more efficient, less expensive channel to reach voters with certainty… political campaigns are about seven years behind the private sector in their use of the Internet as a paid media vehicle…campaigns can make the web work harder for them by using online display media…Our studies indicate that a targeted ad based on geography or demographics can increase response rates by 50 percent. And when ads are targeted based on behavior, those rates increase to 66 percent. These are campaigns based on certainty-whereby a specific audience is messaged to and managed to produce a desired result. This is true whether it’s a campaign to acquire donations or e-mail addresses, or a persuasion or get-out-the-vote message. Moreover, the results can be seen in just hours or days, letting you keep doing what works and kill what doesn’t…the real opportunity is to use the Internet as a paid media platform to run, track and move persuasion metrics.”

Here’s Your Real Online Advantage … And No, It’s Not Viral Videos. Richard J. Kosinski. Politics. 4/1/08

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The Online Ad industry Must Respect & Protect Adolescent Privacy

Last week, a coalition of child advocacy, health and media groups asked the FTC to develop safeguards for digital marketing that would protect adolescent privacy online. This will be a major focus of the Center for Digital Democracy over the next year or so, building on our work during the 1990â€™s which led to the passage of the Childrenâ€™s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA helps protect the privacy of children under 13 years of age. Adolescents are now a principal focus of the online data collection and targeting system, a process which raises many ethical and health-related issues. We call on responsible online ad industry leaders to work with us to enact meaningful policies that protect adolescent privacy on websites, social networks, online gaming, etc. We are pleased that some major online ad companies have privately said to us that they recognize there is a problem. We will work with them and other responsible digital marketers. Policymakers from both congress and the FTC also recognize adolescent privacy is an important concern. It is a bi-partisan one as well (Senator John McCain was the co-sponsor of COPPA). The time to develop a meaningful framework that respects the autonomy of adolescents, but protects their privacy, is now

Former journalist and now online ad industry lobbyist Randall Rothenberg, in a BusinessWeek commentary, suggests that the call for privacy rules ensuring individuals have control over their data will undermine the Internet. You would think a Madison Ave. trade group could craft more creative PR copy. But the online ad industry’s position is indefensible, since they built a system based on the harvesting of our information without believing they would need to get our permission first. The IAB board should realize it has embarked on a very dangerous campaign here that will undermine credibility for many marketers. Here’s my response submitted to BusinessWeek:
Mr. Rothenberg, as head of the interactive ad trade group lobbying against the call from consumer groups for the government to protect personal privacy online, fails to address the central question regarding online advertising. The call for regulation is designed to ensure individuals control their data while on the Internet or using their mobile phonesâ€”not companies such as Google, Microsoft, and AOL. Public interest groups are not opposed to interactive marketing: indeed, we recognize it as a key source of funds for online publishing. But Mr. Rothenbergâ€™s members have created a commercial surveillance system that rivals the NSAâ€”tracking and analyzing our every move while on the Internet, all so we can be encouraged to behave favorably to some marketing message. Responsible ad industry leaders will seriously address the privacy threats created by the interactive marketing apparatusâ€”and not hide behind self-serving claims that unless our privacy is lost, we wonâ€™t have a robust digital medium.

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Online marketers want to track you–from click to click to “last ad” click

Microsoft and Google, along with many partners, are working to perfect a consumer tracking and analysis system so they can better figure out who gets to share in the growing online ad revenue pie. It’s called “engagement mapping.” Although if you are concerned about privacy, you might want to say, “let’s call the whole thing off.” Here’s an excerpt from the April 14, 2008 Ad Age article:

“The concept appears simple, but the technology is complex: raw log-file data, time-stamped and collected by ad-serving companies like Google’s DoubleClick and Microsoft’s Atlas, along with a short line of code known as a pixel hidden in web pages, keep a record of each time consumers enter or exit a web page, click on a link or ad and enter information in a search box or application. Those data are fed into software platforms designed by companies such as Atlas, Epic Advertising, Media Contacts and Starcom.

“It’s sort of like reading an advertising diary,” said Ben Winkler, VP-interactive media director at New York-based Ingenuity Media Group, which joined Atlas’ project earlier this year. “It’s like you opened a diary where someone wrote, ‘I saw three billboards, I heard a radio ad, saw a few banners ads, and searched through Google to find and buy the product.’ “

Rather than wait for a crisis to tell the advertising client something isn’t working, media buyers can rely on these data to identify when consumers had contact with the ads, even if it’s an hour, day or week later.

“We know the person saw ad No. 4 on Yahoo Finance an hour ago,” said David L. Smith, CEO at Mediasmith, which is participating in Atlas’ and DoubleClick’s tests with advertisers. “Embedded code in the pixels lets us track the pages and things they interact with on the site.”

source: New metrics give `credit where due.’ Laurie Sullivan. Ad Age. April 14, 2008 [sub may be required]

Google, AOL, Yahoo, Facebook and Comcast Fear NY State bill protecting online privacy

Oh, what a tangled web when you build a business mode based on the collection and unfettered use of microtargeting data. New York state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has proposed some modest safeguards–but has scared the supposedly privacy-respectful companies such as Google with it. Google, AOL, Yahoo and others sent the letter below to Brodsky. Yesterday, we are told, AOL and News Corp lobbyists met with Brodsky’s office and claimed that the online ad industry would have to flee New York if consumers are protected in that state. Perhaps they plan to relocate Madison Avenue to a digital green zone outside the U.S.! Btw, note the addition of Comcast, which also wants to protect its TV version of behavioral targeting via its Spotlight service.

The letter:

State Privacy and Security Coalition, Inc.

April 7, 2008

The Honorable Richard Brodsky
New York General Assembly
Legislative Office Building
Room 422
Albany, NY 12248

Re: Opposition to A. 9275

Dear Assemblyman Brodsky:

We are writing to express our strong opposition to A. 9275, which is
unnecessary, most likely unconstitutional, and would have profound
implications for the future of Internet advertising and the availability of free
content on the Internet.

A. 9275 would subject advertising networks to an extremely
detailed, unprecedented array of notice, consent, and access obligations
relating to â€œpersonally identifiable informationâ€ and â€œnon-personally
identifiable information â€ that is used for â€œonline preference marketing.â€
Every website that an advertising network contracts with would be subject
to detailed notice requirements.

This bill is unnecessary because advertising networks have already
agreed to self-regulation commitments relating to most of the components
of this bill. If they fail to live up to these commitments, then the Federal
Trade Commission and the New York Attorney Generalâ€™s office would
have enforcement authority. Moreover, the bill appears to be based on
Network Advertising Initiative principles that will soon be outdated, as new
principles are expected to be released in the near future.

This self-regulatory system is continuing to advance. The Federal
Trade Commission has issued further self-regulatory principles relating to
behavioral advertising on which it will receive extensive comments later
this week, and several major network advertisers have announced new self-
regulatory initiatives. New York does not need to, and should not, jump
into this process.

This is particularly true because the Dormant Commerce Clause of
the U.S. Constitution prevents any State from dictating activity across the
Internet. Yet network advertisers and websites across the country and
operating in other countries would have to attempt to change their practices
to conform to the very specific notice, consent and access requirements in A. 9275. It is simply not feasible to comply with Internet advertising regulations that vary from state-to-state. Time after time, state laws that have attempted to impose this sort of broad Internet regulation have been struck down by the courts, doing nothing more than making taxpayers bear the expense both of defending the lawsuit and paying the successful plaintiffsâ€™ attorneys fees.

For all these reasons, we urge you to oppose A. 9275 and allow self-regulation and federal initiatives to address online behavioral advertising.

Sincerely,

Jim Halpert
Counsel

[Members]

AOL, LLC
Comcast
eBay Inc.
EDS
Facebook
Google
Internet Alliance
Monster Worldwide
NAi
NetChoice
Reed Elsevier, Inc.
Yahoo!
500 8th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
202.799.4000 Tel
202.799.5000 Fax

Will Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and its $300m ad budget address the role of advertising and the climate crisis?

We think there’s something ironic about the $300 million ad “We” campaign just launched by Al Gore and several environmental groups to address climate change. We agree that threats to the environment are grave, and require immediate action. But unless Gore’s ads also critique the growing challenge to the environment coming from the advertising industry itself, we doubt whether there will be meaningful change. Marketers are unleashing the most powerful techniques to encourage greater and greater personal consumption. Madison Avenue is expanding the boundaries of what marketing can do by creating what it calls its “Marketing and Media Ecosystem.” From behavioral targeting based on the collection and tracking of our online activities, to “immersive” branded virtual content, to “viral” campaigns using broadband videos, the ad industry has embarked on a full-court press to get the public to eat more junk food, buy more cars, charge more on credit cards and take out new loans, etc.

The campaign, according to press reports, is hoping to encourage “influentials” to press for laws and policies. It’s a noble effort, although is using the same techniques marketers have embraced to target teens and other opinion makers to get friends to buy or like brands and products (called “brand ambassadors” by some). The Gore campaign should include a serious call for the public to be concerned about the consequences from the global and digitally-driven interactive marketing machine. Among the policies it should ask its influentials to support, are safeguards protecting consumer privacy and ensuring that marketing in the digital “ecosystem” is done in a way that truly supports an earth in balance.

PS: Before any of the $300 million is given to buy time via broadcasters, cable companies, ad agencies, and online marketers, the Alliance for Climate Protection should first be required to conduct an environmental impact analysis of how these media each contribute to the climate change threat–and what they should do about it.

AOL’s Privacy “Penguins”–Time Warner Skating on [Very] Thin Consumer Protection Ice

The senior management over at Time Warner must be `in treatment’ with some of their Looney Toon characters. How else to explain the ludicrous use of cartoon penguins that will soon be deployed to really misinform consumers about how and why their data and personal information are being collected and harvested for microtargeting purposes. It’s really shameful that the Time Warner, its Platform A targeting service, and the AOL division are hiding behind these well-liked creatures. But they are doing so because the company doesn’t want to be honest with its users. What Time Warner should be telling consumers are some of the things it pitches to perspective and current advertisers. For example, it should tell consumers that they are being tracked and followed online so advertisers will know they are “demonstrating a specific behavior.” Or that it’s “an advertisers dream–the ability to target consumers…across thousands of websites…[while they] research their options…Through behavioral targeting–and retargeting–we keep your brand top of mind during this crucial consideration phase.” Or that when we are watching online video, Time Warner informs advertisers that it can tell them “[H]ow long did consumers view your ad? Did they visit your website as a result? Better yet, did they visit your store? Online video takes the best of TV and the best of online to create the ultimate solution–high-impact advertising with measurable results.”

Or that it can help them get “leads” for future pitches (think mortgage loans, etc). Will AOL’s Penguin say that it will give marketers “a high-volume” of leads that will “convert into an actual customer…that perform best for your goals.” Or that it can identify our behaviors and then place us for sale as part of consumers profiles to be targeted (such as whether they consider us to be a “Traveler, Health Seeker, Entertainment Buff, Auto Intender or Trendy Homemaker”), which include information about whether we have children at home, how much money we make, or our gender? I hope our Penguin will be telling consumers (and the FTC and the EU’s Article 29 Working Group) that its “insight Reports” provide marketers with “deep knowledge” [our emphasis] “[B]y combining TACODA behavioral segments with comScoreâ€™s MediaMetrixÂ® database of online consumer demographics, Web site visitation patterns, and eCommerce buying power index, TACDOA is able to discover previously unknown key behavioral traits that may be non-intuitive and even counterintuitive behaviors. Our pre and post campaign analyses will help you identify your strategically important audiences in a snap.”

When asked to testify before Congress, as it debates privacy safeguards, we hope Time Warner’s Penguin will be able to explain its “Audience Point” service, which promises advertisers that they will be able to “[R]each the right audience….without waste…the first precision targeting solution giving audiences direct interaction with their likely customers.” Or that Time Warner, via Leadback.com, promises to “helps you reach your site visitors after they exit your site â€“ reinforcing your brand positioning and driving users back to your site to complete a desired action. LeadBack.com â€“ converting browsers into buyers, and buyers into repeat buyers.”

Time Warner and the online ad industry have to be honest with consumers and citizens. They shouldn’t engage in playing games when it comes to protecting privacy. Here’s the real penguin Time Warner and AOL should be using:

The Penguin, as seen in Detective Comics