The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is a lobbying group that is working to oppose federal (or state) legislation and regulation that would protect consumer privacy online. It recently led the lobbying campaign that removed from the new financial reform bill a key provision that would have enabled the FTC to better protect consumers. What companies are helping fund the IAB’s Orwellian named “Consumer Protection and Education Campaign” battling consumer and privacy groups? Here’s a list of the financial donors, who have ponied up about $500k so far. Other companies are contributing free online ad space for the IAB’s campaign–1 billion impressions worth. The donors are:
AdMob
AudienceScience
Canoe Ventures
Cars.com
CPX Interactive
eBureau
Eyeblaster
Feeva Technology
Google
IDG.net
IM Services Group
Mediamath
Meredith Interactive
Microsoft
Quantcast
Sharethis
ShortTail
Simulmedia
Time Warner
Traffic Marketplace
Tumri
Verizon
Washington Post
WildTangent
Category: Comcast
Online Advertisers Side with Kids Junk Food Marketers: Opposing Consumer Protection by FTC, Even to Address Childhood Obesity Epidemic
The Interactive Ad Bureau [whose board members include Google, Fox, NBC, Comcast] is working with the marketing and data collection lobby to oppose proposed Obama Administration legislation that would enable the FTC to protect consumers. It’s clear from the comments below in Reuters, that the IAB is siding with those that don’t want to really address the youth obesity crisis. If the FTC is allowed to conduct the same rulemaking procedures that the FCC and other agencies already do, it might actually be able to better protect consumers, including kids. Shame on the IAB and its lobbyist colleagues for being on the side of those against the public health of our nation’s children. By preventing the FTC to engage in consumer protection, the IAB, ANA and others are supporting the same deregulatory scheme which led to the current financial disaster for so many Americans and our economy. Here’s the Reuters excerpt:
“A more powerful FTC could boost its oversight of advertising of sugary and salty snacks to children, the online collection of personal data by advertisers and green advertising, said Dan Jaffe of the Association of National Advertisers…This (financial reform/CFPA bill) is a fast moving train,” said Zaneis. “The FTC provisions that are likely to be added onto the CFPA bill really are industry’s no. 1 legislative priority.”
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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
Progress & Freedom Foundation Comes to Aid of Comcast/NBCU Deal [But Doesn’t Say it’s Funded by both Comcast and NBCU!]
Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Ken Ferree issued a press release today that, amazingly, claimed “the deal raises no general antitrust or diversity issue.” But there was not a word or mea culpa that his salary is partly paid for by PFF’s supporters Comcast, NBCU and the cable industry. Beyond the conflict question, there is also Mr. Ferree’s peculiar history with media consolidation. He was Michael Powell’s chief staffer when the FCC tried to end all the media ownership safeguards. Powell and his allies failed then to understand the complexities of the issue, which resulted in a huge public and political backlash. It appears it’s rerun time!
Comcast’s Pathetic “Public Interest” Commitments to Regulators for its NBCU Deal
Comcast released a memo this morning summarizing what it will promise regulators in order to win approval of its NBCU mega-deal with GE.  It’s a laughable document that demonstrates a cable monopolist mentality. As the country’s most powerful cable and residential broadband company, they likely feel that they don’t have to really provide a serious array of public interest commitments.  Even though the broadcasting business is in transition, and film distribution is changing, the sale of NBCU to what is arguably the dominant TV giant isn’t on its own a meaningful public interest benefit. Indeed, the recent history of media consolidation in the U.S. is one that has actually harmed the public–through cutbacks in news and public affairs, more tabloid programming and higher cable TV rates, for example.
Comcast’s memo today [available via here] says nothing on the key (and crucial) issue of network neutrality and online programming access. Nor are there any safeguards for privacy and interactive ads, meaningful concrete funding commitments for local and national news, and support for truly diverse (non-Comcast/NBCU owned) minority programming.  Today, Comcast demonstrated it’s only fit to perhaps be allowed to operate Comedy Central.
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…â€
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
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.
IAB Works to Undermine Obama Consumer Protection Plan [On its Exec. Board includes Google, Time Warner, Disney, NYT, CBS, WPP]
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) signed a July 20, 2009 letter sent to Rep. Barney Frank of the House Committee on Financial Services raising questions–and really attempting to undermine–the Obama Administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Others signing the letter included the Business Roundtable, Consumers Bankers Association, Consumer Data Industry Association, Financial Services Roundtable, the Real Estate Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The IAB wasn’t the only ad lobby group signing the letter; so did the 4A’s and the DMA. My colleagues in the consumer community view the letter as an attempt to derail the bill [the letter, which asks for a delay on the bill, says that “there will be significant dangerous, unintended consequences if the legislation is enacted in its current form.”]
Why would the IAB be concerned about the creation of a new powerful consumer financial watchdog? It’s because their members work with companies engaged in digitally-related financial products–including mortgages, loans, credit cards, and so-called lead generation services. The IAB benefits from the hundreds of millions spent year year on interactive ads for financially-related services (Among the top 15 digital advertisers in 2008 were Scottrade, Tree.com, TD Ameritrade Holding Co, Bank of America, FMR Corp, Experian, etc.). The IAB is clearly afraid of having an agency that would be empowered to investigate how online marketers sell and promote a wide range of financial products online.
We do wonder whether IAB board members that support the Obama Administration’s proposal (which is widely backed by consumer groups) understand the implications of the position it has taken. Personally, I believe the creation of the new agency is critically important. We must ensure that American consumers are never again victims when buying financial products. Given that most of us will be learning about and purchasing financial services online, the proposed new agency will have to address how a number of IAB’s members engage in digitally-delivered financial services.
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.