Category: Obama Administration

Online Financial Marketing, Subprime Loans, Digital Banking & Neuromarketing–Why We Need the Consumer Protection Financial Agency

How we handle our money–including credit, loans and banking–is moving online.  Digital marketing of mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other financial products will become the dominant way we relate to banking and related services.  The CEO of Capital One has already said that ” [A] mobile phone is just a credit card with an antenna.”  So called M-commerce (mobile commerce) will be a crucial avenue where we actually apply for credit on “the fly,” so to speak, with our cell phones themselves used to buy products.   Banks and other financial companies are using Facebook, other social media, online video, Twitter, search engines and interactive online marketing techniques to sell their services to consumers.  They are also using digital media in PR campaigns designed to make consumers forget about their unethical behaviors which led to the current fiscal crisis.

Financial services companies are even using so-called neuromarketing–testing messages via fMRIs, for example–to help hone their marketing messages.  Neurofocus, a Nielsen backed company that helps create digital and other ads based on brainwave research, released a study  earlier this year that “dived deep into test subjects subconscious minds to discover their hidden, unspoken beliefs and feelings about financial institution brands.” They “tested consumers in its laboratory to determine exactly what financial brand messages they responded to best, at the deep subconscious level of their minds, where brand perceptions, brand loyalty, and purchase intent are truly formed.”  Financial marketers are also using behavioral targeting online, which stealthily collects data on us for tracking and target marketing. That’s why we keep seeing ads for credit cards and other money-related products.  The information gathered as we fill in forms on the Internet  can be sold as part of the online lead generation business.  Online lead generation played a role in the subprime debacle, as consumers provided marketers with personal information that helped trigger pitches for mortgages and other credit.

Alternet has just published my article on these issues.  It can be found here.

Microsoft’s latest Neuromarketing Research for its Xbox LIVE: Tracking “brain activity, breathing rate, head motion heart rate, blink rate and skin temperature”

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, among many others, are using the latest tools from neuroscience to hone their interactive marketing services.  Microsoft released its latest neurmarketing “groundbreaking “study yesterday, which used “neuroscience to compare Xbox LIVE to traditional video…”  Here’s an excerpt from the release:

In the study, Microsoft and Initiative, a division of Mediabrands, measured advertising effectiveness across media types and explored how neuroscience technologies can help answer two questions that marketers have asked for years: how to measure audience engagement with their brand and how to measure advertising impact across several media types.

This pilot study, conducted by EmSense, a leading neuroscience company, involved two of Initiative’s clients, Hyundai and Kia Motors, in which test subjects were exposed to various media and advertising campaigns from the companies while wearing a special sensor-laden headset. The headset tracked brain activity, breathing rate, head motion, heart rate, blink rate and skin temperature. Test subjects were also asked to take a post-exposure survey.

The Xbox LIVE campaigns consisted of interactive billboards that users could click through to a branded landing page where they could then interact with content and download videos. The traditional videos used in this study included a 30-second television spot for Hyundai and a 60-second in-theater spot for Kia Motors America.

The results showed more time spent, greater recall and higher levels of emotional and cognitive response in association with the Xbox LIVE ad campaigns than with the traditional video spots. The interactive capabilities of Xbox LIVE enabled an additional 238 seconds of engagement beyond the traditional video ad, which lead to increased unaided recall and brand awareness. For example, the Xbox LIVE ads delivered 90 percent unaided brand recall, compared with 78 percent unaided brand recall rates for the 60-second spot. In addition, the Xbox LIVE ads delivered higher levels of both cognitive and emotional responses.

“We know from our standard performance metrics that our Xbox LIVE campaign is effective,” said Michael Hayes, executive vice president, managing director of Digital, Initiative. “What’s compelling about this research is that we now know that consumers are making an emotional connection with Kia Motors America as well.”

Even more compelling is the methodology that allows brands to compare impact and engagement across multiple measures and across a variety of media types…said Mark Kroese, general manager of the Microsoft Advertising Business Group, Entertainment & Devices Division, Microsoft. “…If we can crack the code on this, marketers and advertisers will be able to pinpoint ROI by media type and know which campaigns are yielding the greatest impact.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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

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…”

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

Games Microsoft Plays: “consumer online behavior” tracked on its video gaming service [a “massive” invasion of privacy!]

Microsoft’s just announced a new consumer tracking and profiling tool for advertisers using its Massive video gaming platform service. Calling it a “breakthrough” in its press release, the new Microsoft/comScore research tool enables advertisers:

“… to see the direct impact that in-game advertisements have on consumer online behavior…, advertisers will get an inside look at the degree to which in-game ads motivate gamers to visit Web sites, conduct brand-related search queries and engage in other online actions, something that previously had gone unmeasured…Through this collaboration with comScore, we will also now be able to measure those consumer actions that result from in-game ads. We think this has the potential to literally ‘change the game’ for both advertisers and publishers who want to improve the effectiveness of their in-game ad efforts.”

AdEffx Action Lift for Gaming matches in-game console ad serving data from Massive with comScore’s third-party, post-campaign panel data to track and measure in-game advertising effectiveness. By combining Microsoft’s proprietary, non-personally identifying Anonymous ID data, which is common across Xbox LIVE and Microsoft Web properties (known as Windows Live ID), with user data from comScore’s panel of 2 million Internet users worldwide, comScore can determine if panelists who saw in-game advertising subsequently visited a brand’s Web site, searched brand-related terms or engaged in other online behaviors important to advertisers.”

Microsoft Advertising offers “Profile Targeting”

As we just told the BEUC conference on consumer protection and online marketing, we couldn’t make this up if we tried.  Here’s what Microsoft Advertising says it can do via its UK site for marketers:

Just say who, when and where

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. Just name the characteristics that matter most to you. It could be anything from the consumer’s age, gender or country, to the day of the week you want to target the audience on.

[and here’s what they say about behavioral retargeting, which they euphemistically now call “re-messaging“]”

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 intouch and help create continual engagement with your brand.  Re-messaging is effective on its own, but works at its best whencombined with other forms of targeting and campaign performance. By placing action tags on your website, we can track visitors throughout the course of their online journey and re-message them on our network. For example the consumer may have previously searched for a hotel but not booked, compared credit cards but not applied, or visited a promotional website. Whatever it may be, if they’ve gone part way to making a purchase or performing an action, we can help you continue the conversation and ensure that the relevant message is seen by the people it matters most to.

Google+AdMob=Mobile Privacy Issues for the FTC. Questions should be raised about mobile targeting via “ethnicity”

The Federal Trade Commission should examine the privacy issues connected to the Google/AdMob deal.  As we informed the FTC yesterday, AdMob says it can target via “age, gender, HHI, ethnicity, education & context.”

The CDD/USPIRG complaint on mobile advertising provides useful analysis. Here’s an excerpt on its discussion about AdMob:

AdMob: “Mining All the Data We’ve Captured”
AdMob is a “mobile advertising network” seeking to “target mobile users and monetize mobile traffic.” There is inadequate notice and little opportunity to opt-out of this data- gathering. Few mobile users realize that their communications and actions are monitored and recorded in order to create intimate profiles for marketing purposes.
AdMob also targets the youth demographic. It segments “market audiences” into several categories, including a “Digital Natives” category, which include boys and girls as young as 13.  AdMob also focuses on social networking sites, claiming it “enables developers to monetize Facebook mobile applications by integrating AdMob’s industry-leading mobile publishing solutions into any Facebook mobile application. Developers building mobile web applications for the Facebook community using the Facebook Platform for Mobile can easily integrate the AdMob code to start serving ads….”

And AdMob is continually seeking to mine and monetize the data gathered on unsuspecting youths and other mobile users. AdMob’s CEO Omar Hamoui admitted, “We are investing a fair amount of development resources into mining all the data we’ve captured over the last 12 months of ad serving and targeting.”

AdMob gathers this data (and targets youths) without adequate notice to the consumer, making it difficult for a mobile user to weigh the costs and benefits and choose whether to opt out of this profiling. This constitutes unfair and deceptive practices, and the Federal Trade Commission should scrutinize these actions.

“Cookie Wars, Real-Time Targeting, and Proprietary Self Learning Algorithms: Why the FTC Must Act Swiftly to Protect Consumer Privacy”

That’s the title of comments filed at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by my Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. PIRG.  I also just gave a presentation with the same name at last week’s meeting of data protection commissioners in Madrid, Spain.   It’s available here.

Here’s an excerpt:   Today, consumers online face the rapid growth and ever-increasing sophistication of the various techniques advertisers employ for data collection, profiling, and targeting across all online platforms. The growth of ad and other optimization services for targeting, involving real-time bidding on ad exchanges; the expansion of data collection capabilities from the largest advertising agencies (with the participation of leading digital media content and marketing companies); the increasing capabilities of mobile marketers to target users via enhanced data collection; and a disturbing growth of social media surveillance practices for targeted marketing are just a few of the developments the commission must address. But despite technical innovation and what may appear to be dramatic changes in the online data collection/profiling/targeting market, the commission must recognize that the underlying paradigm threatening consumer privacy online has been constant since the early 1990’s. So-called “one-to-one marketing,” where advertisers collect as much as possible on individual consumers so they can be targeted online, remains the fundamental approach.

Groups & Scholars Urge Congress to Strengthen FTC’s Ability to Protect Consumers

The advertising lobby has been working to undermine the FTC’s ability to serve the public interest.  Advertisers are fearful that the FTC–finally awakened from a long digital slumber–will actually investigate the numerous problems linked especially to marketing (think prescription drugs, financial marketing of subprime loans, etc.).  They are especially concerned that the FTC will effectively address privacy and consumer protection problems related to privacy, interactive advertising, children and adolescents, and “green” marketing.  Here’s the letter which was sent late yesterday to Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Barton:


October 28, 2009

Chairman Henry Waxman

Rep. Joe Barton, Ranking Member

Energy and Commerce Committee

(via email)

Dear Chairman Waxman and Rep. Barton:

We write to support the provisions in H.R. 3126, the “Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009” (CFPA Act), designed to ensure that the Federal Trade Commission has the resources and authority to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices.

We believe that the FTC must play a more proactive role addressing critical consumer concerns, including privacy, online marketing, and food advertising to young people.  Therefore, we fully support the legislative language in H.R.3126 that would enable the commission to conduct consumer protection rulemaking under the provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA); provide it with aiding and abetting liability for violations of the Section 5 of the FTC Act involving unfair or deceptive practices; and enable it to seek civil penalty liability for unfair and deceptive practices found to violate Section 5.  We also support providing the FTC independent litigating authority in civil penalty cases.

As you know, the FTC’s ability to serve consumers has been hamstrung because of its “Magnuson-Moss” rulemaking procedure.  As a result, the FTC has not been able to effectively engage in a timely and effective rulemaking process.  By providing the FTC with the same APA rulemaking authority enjoyed by other federal agencies, it will enable the commission to engage in consumer protection activities in a timely manner.

Respectfully,

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood

Center for Democracy and Technology

Center for Digital Democracy

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Children Now

Consumer Federation of America

Consumer Action

Consumers Union

Consumer Watchdog

Free Press

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Media Access Project

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Privacy Times

Public Citizen

Public Knowledge

Public Health Institute

U.S. PIRG

World Privacy Forum

David Britt, CEO (retired) Sesame Workshop

Prof. Kelly Brownell, Yale University

Prof. Robert McChesney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Prof. Kathryn C. Montgomery, American University

Prof. Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania

Prof. Ellen Wartella, UC Riverside