Category: Hispanic Targeting

Google’s Eric Schmidt on Mobile Marketing [Annals of Why We Need Mobile Privacy and Consumer Protection Safeguards]

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave the keynote address at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s “Ecosystem 2.0” conference.  As reported, he explained that [our emphasis]:

“The smartphone is the iconic device of our time,” Schmidt told the record IAB audience of 750 in Palm Springs, California. A year ago, he added, he predicted that mobile use would surpass PCs within two years. “It happened two weeks ago. And the PC is not going to catch up,” Schmidt said, as he labeled the new era, “Mobile First.”…The hyperlocal potential of mobile, Schmidt continued, means that smartphones and tablets bring a practical application to marketing that no other medium can match: A connection that will lead you to the store, open the door, and direct you to a product you need. “A RadioShack ad can tell you where you are and how to get to the nearest store.” And equipped with Near Field Communication chip (NFC), the newest generation of smartphones not only can tell you what to buy, it can enable a tap-and-pay transaction…Think of the offers mechanisms for advertisers,” Schmidt offered. “We’ve spent 20 years trying to get here. And now there’s an explosion in commerce. Particularly for the consumer who says, “I want to buy something and want to buy it right now,” he added, “We can do it.”

And, in large part, that capability means that mobile media consumption “is happening faster than all our internal predictions.”

Some 78% of smartphone internet users already use their smartphones as they shop. And, as consumer comfort with – and acceptance of – new mobile technology continues, Schmidt envisions “a world, in the very near future, where computers remember things and you never need to worry about forgetting anything. You want it to remember something and it will. And you’re never lost. No one is ever lost. You never turn off the [mobile device] and you’ll always know where you are. And where you want to go….”

Leading Health, Privacy, and Consumer Groups Call on FTC to Protect Adolescent Privacy online

For Immediate Release:  Feb. 18, 2011
Child, Health and Consumer Advocates Ask FTC for Teen Privacy Protections, including Do-Not-Track and No Behavioral Targeting

Today a Coalition of Child, Health and Consumer Advocates filed comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed privacy framework asking for increased privacy protections for adolescents.   The coalition includes leading advocates such as the Center for Digital Democracy, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, Children Now, and the Consumer Federation of America.

Privacy protections are needed as teens are increasingly subjected to privacy invasions online. Teens are using new media technologies for key social interactions and to explore their identities. This increased use of digital media subjects them to wholesale data collection and profiling of even their most intimate interactions with friends, family, and schools. Meanwhile, recent research in psychology and neuroscience reveals that teens are more prone to risky behavior when their anxieties and peer relations are exploited. Privacy protections are needed to keep the online world social and safe.

Companies should not use data to behaviorally profile teens. The framework should also provide enhanced choice for adolescents, including a Do Not Track feature. In implementing “privacy by design,” companies should consider the needs and vulnerabilities of teens.  They should address those vulnerabilities by, for example, minimizing the amount of data collected from teens.  Data that is collected should be retained for only short periods and should be afforded greater security.

“Teens live online today,” said Guilherme Roschke, attorney for CDD. “This time of development and maturation requires privacy protections. Teens cannot go it alone against the vast data collection and profiling infrastructure of new media technologies that not even adults can understand.”

“Because of their avid use of new media, adolescents are primary targets for digital marketing,” explained co-signer Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D. “The unprecedented ability of digital technologies to track and profile individuals across the media landscape, and to engage in sophisticated forms of targeting, puts these young people at special risk of compromising their privacy.”

The full coalition includes:

Center for Digital Democracy, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, Berkeley Media Studies Group, a project of the Public Health Institute, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, David VB Britt, Retired CEO, Sesame Workshop, Ellen Wartella, Kathryn Montgomery, National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity, a project of Public Health Law & Policy, The Praxis Project, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Public Good, Public Health Institute, Tamara R. Piety, and World Privacy Forum

Guilherme Roschke
Staff Attorney / Fellow
Institute for Public Representation
First Amendment and Media Center
Georgetown University Law Center
T:(202) 662-9543
F:(202) 662-9634
gcr22@law.georgetown.edu
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/clinics/ipr/
**********

NTIA’s Strickling on Privacy: He Forgets Consumers!

Here’s an excerpt via Politico from their interview with Department of Commerce NTIA Chief–and potential privacy policy maven–Lawrence Strickling.  Note the absence of consumers in his description of the problem and issues.  The Commerce Department, which is jockeying to have a greater role in the privacy debate (which the largest data collectors like because they are afraid of the consumer watchdog-minded FTC), better start making consumer needs come first–if they are to have any credibility here in the U.S. and with the EU.   It appears from the interview the Commerce Department has largely made up its mind to rely on “voluntary enforceable codes of conduct.”   Here’s what Larry said in a Q & A:

NTIA is also getting into the privacy discussions.

It’s part of the larger Internet Policy Task Force that’s underway here at Commerce where our agency — along with other agencies — is looking at a number of Internet policy issues. Privacy is first and foremost on the list, but we’re also looking at the protection of intellectual property, cybersecurity, and we’ll be looking at the free flow of information. For Commerce, our theme links all these topics around the notion of innovation, preserving the job creation and business expansion aspects of the Internet and trying to protect that going forward. So in the area of privacy, the task force did issue the green paper late last year. Comments just came in on that, so people are starting to work their way through them, with the goal that we’ll take the green paper and turn it into a more final pronouncement of the Department of Commerce or perhaps even the administration’s policy on privacy later this spring.

Do you think there should be a government office specifically dedicated to privacy?

We certainly believe that if we’re going to move forward with these voluntary enforceable codes of conduct with the industry that the function of convening and organizing that process should sit [in the government]. Our believe is that the Department of Commerce, and in particular NTIA, is the appropriate place for that function to reside. When we start talking about offices that sounds more bureaucratic and maybe requires departmental administrative orders. But on the issue of making sure that function is done, yes, based on what we see in the comments, we think that’s an appropriate idea. We think it’s a necessary idea in terms of working with industry and we’ll see how this all plays out over the course of the spring.

What is NTIA doing internationally on the privacy front?

Privacy has big international implications because the Council of Europe is looking at redoing what they’ve done in privacy. The European Union is looking at this issue. OECD is looking at the issue. So we’re very cognizant of the need to make sure our policy, whatever it is, is designed in a way to best harmonize with what’s happening in the rest of the world, and in particularly Europe.

Arianna Huffington’s AOL Privacy Problem–Will She Be a “Progressive” and Limit Behavioral Targeting?

Ms. Huffington’s HuffPost used behavioral targeting and other forms of interactive marketing to help make the news site successful.  At HuffPost, the privacy issues involved with such practices were never seriously addressed.  But now Ms. Huffington has a new role as the editorial executive for AOL’s content service.   But AOL is engaged in extensive and manipulative forms of behavioral targeting–including the pervasive online targeting of teens, African Americans, health and medical consumers and patients, for financial service products, etc.  Like other online marketers, AOL claims such online tracking, profiling and targeting isn’t really personally identifiable–which is both inaccurate and deceptive.  We challenge Ms. Huffington to engage in a serious journalistic investigation of AOL’s privacy practices and redress them.  There should be absolutely no targeting of adolescents.  Behavioral targeting of African-Americans, financial and health products should be by prior opt-in consent only.  Ms. Huffington should be held responsible for AOL’s privacy and online marketing practices–and we expect her to address them as she increasingly plays a greater leadership role in the online ad industry.  Meanwhile, here’s what AOL says it does using behavioral targeting focused on African-Americans:

Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Black Voices. People who visit Black Voices for the latest in news, entertainment, sports, lifestyle, careers, money and more.
  • You can target the following subsections of the Black Voices audience:
  • Auto Intenders. In-market car, truck or motorcycle shoppers who are looking for specific makes and models. They read reviews, look at pricing and features, and research financing options.
  • Die Hard Sports Fans. Dedicated fans who follow professional and collegiate sports, stay on top of player rankings, and shop for sports memorabilia.
  • Entertainment Buffs. People who follow the latest news about celebrities, movies, music and soaps. They purchase DVDs, music and video games online and also take an active interest in memorabilia.
  • Money Minders. Affluent, older individuals who are seeking online financial advice, checking the performance of their investments, getting tax advice, planning their retirement and researching insurance options.
  • Moviegoers. Movie buffs who read the latest reviews, follow celebrity gossip and purchase tickets/DVDs online.
  • Travelers. Personal and business travelers who are interested in travel advice and deals. They use the internet to purchase airline tickets, book accommodations, make car reservations and research financing options.

Accurate. Pinpoint your customers with other powerful targeting solutions:

  • Develop a custom audience segment modeled after visitors to your site (Look-Alike Modeling).
  • Find African American households that have the greatest propensity to purchase specific products or brands (MRI Lifestyle Clusters).
  • If you’re sponsoring an AOL page, retarget consumers who have visited it (Sponsorship LeadBack).
  • Find your ideal African American audiences on the sites they are most likely to visit (Subnet Targeting).
  • Find AOL members who have selected the AOL Black Voices Welcome Screen as their homepage option, or who have indicated (through third party data) that someone in their household is of African American ethnicity (Audience Rosters).

and its behavioral targeting of consumers looking for mortgages and other financial products:

Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Business Decision Maker. Individuals with an active interest in business news and strategy.
  • Money Minders. Affluent, older individuals who are seeking online financial advice, checking the performance of their investments, getting tax advice, planning their retirement and researching insurance options.
  • Real Estate Intender. In-market individuals looking to buy, sell or rent property.
  • Small Business Owner. Small business professionals shopping for real estate, health care and office and computer equipment.
  • Investors. Affluent individuals who read business news, evaluate stocks, seek financial advice and conduct trades online.
  • Insurance Intender. Individuals seeking information about life, auto, home or health insurance.
  • Mortgage Intender. Individuals seeking information about mortgage rates and/or home loans.

and AOL’s adolescent targeting [for shame!]:
Behavioral. Target consumers based on their interests:

  • Active Gamers. Teens and adults looking for online and console game strategies, tracking game release dates and purchasing video games.
  • Television Watchers. Individuals who keep up with their favorite television shows via TV network sites and online communities.
  • Style Mavens. Trend-focused women interested in the latest fashion, jewelry, and health and beauty items. They like to feel as good as they look by also paying attention to diet and fitness. 
  • AIM Audience. Individuals who have visited AIM properties.

What AOL Should Have Told Reps. Barton & Markey


AOL also describes to Reps. Barton and Markey the way they use cookies that doesn’t reflect what they say to clients--such as “Target users based on attributes from user registration or third-party data (e.g. age, gender, income, kids)… Retarget users who visit your website… Target users within households using Experian’s statistical modeling based on hundreds of offline data elements that are most predictive for defining the specific audience of consumers.” For question 1, they refer to their privacy policy—something few consumers would read or understand.  Nor does the privacy policy spell out how AOL collects and targets users, as they do for potential clients.  See and compare to privacy policy. See how they offer targeting based on political information.

Question 2:  They didn’t answer completely.  They should have included information from here. And what their partners collect.

Question 3.  They should have said they urge advertisers to use pixels, beacons and other tracking tools:   “Place pixels on all high-traffic pages… Target broadly… Most networks, including Advertising.com, look at IP or cookie data to determine if a user is part of a specific demographic or has demonstrated a particular online behavior, such as shopping for a car, browsing cooking sites, and so on. With user targeting, you reach those consumers directly, regardless of the sites they happen to be visiting.”

And they say that the third party cookies don’t identify the “specific user.”  But that’s what AOL says it can target:  “Target users within households… Retarget users who visit your website… Target users within households that demonstrate the highest propensity to buy certain products…”

Question 7.  They don’t say what they do.  It’s monetizing all the data:  “We monetize nearly 1.5 billion impressions per day on average.”

10.  They should have said how they target based on financial and health info.  They didn’t.  See its targeting for health, finance, teens, Hispanics, African-Americans.


14.   Users don’t have enough information on the process to really determine whether they should opt-out.  Nor is AOL’s opt-out really visible.

Online Marketers, Privacy & Self-Regulation: “Repeatedly Failed Promises Syndrome”

To help undermine the impact of the forthcoming FTC proposal to protect consumer privacy, a coalition of online ad lobby groups will unveil yet another self-regulation plan.  According to Mediapost, online consumers will soon see “[I]cons to signify behavioral advertising — or serving ads based on people’s Web activity.”  Since 1999, online ad groups have rolled out self-regulatory regimes promising to protect consumers online.  Each has failed to do so.   This new effort involves the very same groups and companies that offered self-regulatory promises in the past.   For example, see the World Privacy Forum’s report on the failure of the Network Advertising Initiative’s self-reg schemes; that group is part of the new effort, btw.

This new effort is seriously flawed–and before marketers and advertisers adopt it, it must be independently evaluated by consumer groups, independent academics, and the FTC.  We believe that the system will fail to protect consumers–because it will not candidly inform them about how the data is collected and used.  Meanwhile, in a revealing flip-flip, the IAB’s UK counterpart deep-sixed its just released safeguard on retargeting.  According to a new report, “[O]nline advertising trade body the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has withdrawn a code of practice which recommended that behavioural advertising retargeting cookies should expire after 48 hours. The IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC) published the code last week. It applied to the practice of ‘retargeting’ web users who had visited a site with ads for that site on other people’s websites, using cookies to track their movements and activities…That code has been withdrawn and will be reworked after further industry consultation, though, the IAB said. The code has disappeared from the IAB’s website.”

Consumers and citizens require real safeguards governed by law and regulation–not flimsy digital promises designed to sanction ever-expanding data collection practices.

Google & Microsoft Tout their Mobile Targeting Clout, inc. Behavioral, Location, Gender, etc.

My CDD and USPIRG asked the FTC in January 2009 to investigate mobile marketing and its threat to both privacy and consumer protection issues (Ringleader Digital, now the subject of lawsuits and stories in the WSJ and NYT, was included in the complaint, btw).  Online mobile marketers, including Microsoft and Google, illustrate how regulators in the U.S. and abroad should require safeguards to protect the public from unfair and deceptive practices–including those that involve their privacy.  In Ad Age, both Google and Microsoft loudly proclaim what their mobile marketing services can do for brands, ads and marketers.  Here are some choice excerpts:

Microsoft:  “Microsoft Advertising’s industry-leading mobile display and search advertising solutions engage more than 43 million on-the-go U.S. consumers each month—regardless of a user’s mobile phone or wireless carrier. Its innovative ad placements and ad formats include display, rich media, search, video and custom in-app ad units…

Advanced Targeting Options
  • Profile targeting: age, gender, household income, location, time of day
  • Behavioral targeting: more than 120 custom segments (e.g., “movie watchers” and “business travelers”)
  • Device: make and model
  • Wireless carriers: on-deck inventory
  • Keyword targeting: exact or broad match…Complete mobile ad solutions for automotive, CPG, entertainment, financial services, retail, technology, telecommunications, travel and other sectors…
  • More than 43 million, or 55 percent of active mobile web users in U.S.
  • More than 80 million active mobile users globally in 32 countries.”

Google: “Today’s consumers are on the move. More than ever before, audiences are searching and browsing the web on their mobile devices. How do advertisers connect with the on-the-go consumer…As customers go mobile, advertisers need smart mobile advertising strategies. With Google, they can easily target and tailor messages according to location and automatically show their customers relevant local business information or phone numbers to enable them to take immediate action. Once a campaign is up and running, marketers can measure their results via detailed reports. Additionally, integrated mobile reporting in Google Analytics allows them to track and optimize conversion, e-commerce and engagement metrics on mobile devices. They can take advantage of Google’s mobile-specific ad formats. Click-to-call text ads, animated mobile banner ads, click-to-download ads and other display ad formats are examples of how Google is innovating for the small screen.  Google closed its acquisition of AdMob, one of the world’s leading mobile advertising networks, in May. AdMob’s innovative rich media ad units—including full-screen expandable, animated banner and interactive video—create opportunities for advertisers to engage with a relevant audience on their mobile devices. Now the Google and AdMob teams are working to create new ways to deliver engaging and innovative advertising experiences that will help marketers drive their businesses forward…

CASE STUDY

CHALLENGE: Esurance, a direct-to-consumer personal car insurance company, wanted to ensure that customers could do business with it on their own terms and at their own convenience… To make the connection between mobile users and Esurance agents, Esurance used Google mobile ads with integrated click-to-call functionality. The CTC ads gave mobile users the option of clicking through to Esurance’s mobile-optimized landing page or initiating a phone call with a licensed insurance agent…Results…

  • Boosted conversion rates: Click-to-call mobile ads drove a 30 percent to 35 percent higher response.”

PS:  Attention Music Lovers.  In the same Ad Age piece, the online music service Pandora exclaims that it can provide:“Through powerful hypertargeting, reach the right person, at the right time, without waste. Target based on age, day, gender, location, mobile platform, time and type of music…Pandora offers a broad array of formats and rich media functions to create an immersive mobile experience, including:

  • Tap to video
  • Drag and drop
  • Tap to app
  • Tap to call
  • Tap to e-mail
  • Tap to expand
  • Tap to find a location
  • Tap to iTunes
  • Tap to mobile webpage
  • Standard banners”

Google’s new `simplifed’ Privacy Policy: More disclosure and honesty required [updated]

Last week Google announced it was “simplifying and updating” its privacy policies.  As it so often does, the announcement was framed as a `we did for your good’ kind of effort.  “[W]e want to make our policies more transparent and understandable,” it explained, noting that “most privacy policies are still too hard to understand.” But as so often with Google and other online marketers, you have to both read between the digital lines and also analyze what’s really going on.

Google’s revised policy, which takes effect October 3, fails to really explain to consumers/users what’s actually going on.  Like other privacy policies, Google claims that all its data collection is to “provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services.”  But what they really mean–and what the Congress, the FTC and other regulators must require them to disclose–is that they have crafted a wide-ranging system designed to foster personalized data collection and online targeting.  Missing from the revised Privacy Policy (which Google, btw, is pitching to privacy advocates and no doubt others as a  paragon of digital virtue) is any candid disclosure on how its Doubleclick, Admob, Google Display Network, Ad Exchange, Teracent, and other services collect information from and about us.

Google isn’t alone–Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and everyone else rely on a purposefully deceptive privacy policy to engage in data collection activities that require disclosure and individual user control.  Google is also reshaping its privacy policy to better capture all the data it can collect across multiple platforms and applications. Here, just for the record, is what Google advertised in Ad Age’s recent Ad Exchange and online advertising guide [excerpt]:  No matter how you define performance, the Google Display Network offers a solution. By bringing more measurability and precision to your advertising, it enables you to create, target and optimize ads based on real-time data, meaning better returns for you.

The Google Display Network helps advertisers and agencies achieve performance at scale by delivering relevant, accountable ads to their target audiences—in more places, more often…Precisely target your audience: The Google Display Network’s technology enables you to find customers based on their interests, sites they visit and when they’re engaging with relevant content via contextual targeting, or show specific messages to users who’ve already visited your site with remarketing…The Google Display Network provides opportunities to advertise in all such environments—feeds, games, mobile, social networks and video streams— enabling you to create an immersive experience for your audience.

PS.  Well, Google just also announced what its interactive display ad system can do for marketers.  How come this isn’t in the privacy policy in understandable language and full consumer control? Excerpt:  Advertising with Google used to be all about four lines of text, on Google.com and on our partner sites. No longer. Did you know that, outside of ads alongside search results, more than 40 percent of the ads that we show are now non-text ads? And that doesn’t include the 45 billion ads that our DoubleClick advertising products serve every day across the web.

We get excited by display advertising for a number of reasons…Teracent’s technology can automatically tailor and select the creative elements in an ad, and adjust them based on location, language, weather and even the past performance of ads, to show the optimal ad.  We’re focused on helping advertisers get the best results from their campaigns—by enabling creative branding campaigns, precise targeting, wide reach and effective measurement. Over recent years, we’ve added a ton of new features to YouTube and the Google Display Network, to help advertisers get—and measure—the results they’re after. From remarketing to Campaign Insights to video targeting on YouTube, we’re building tools that are helping advertisers get great results and enabling them to run some of the most amazing ad campaigns the world has ever seen.

Retargeting 3.0–It tracks and observes a consumer, adds new data–and changes its sales pitch

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a front-page story on retargeting--the practice of stealthily tracking an individual user online in order to keep delivering sales pitches–including for health and financial products.  We gave the NYT lots of information, including how so-called “smart” ads technologies are now melded with retargeting–for so-called “Retargeting 3.0.“  [My CDD and USPIRG, btw, asked the FTC to investigate retargeting back in 2007 and to protect consumers].  Here’s some of what we sent to the Times.

From Criteo:“Retargeting allows you to find your previous website visitors across the Internet and display relevant banners to lead them back to your website to complete their transaction. Bringing ready-to-buy users back to your website after they have left should be a key part of your customer acquisition and conversion strategy. Criteo provides a breakthrough dynamic personalised retargeting solution…Criteo has revolutionised retargeting with the most sophisticated form of dynamic personalised retargeting. Over the past decade there has been a slow evolution of retargeting. This third generation of retargeting enables an advertiser to show each lost visitor a unique banner based on his/her very specific past interactions on the advertiser’s website. This new form of retargeting involves on-the-fly, real-time personalised banner creation and has a dramatic impact on campaign performance.”

Retargeting data now incorporates user information from outside demand side platform sources, and can the rights to retargeting you can be sold to the highest bidder via online ad exchanges, such as the one run by Google.

A recent MediaPost panel sums up how retargeting has evolved:
Re-Thinking Re-Targeting 
Re-targeting continues to be the tried and true workhorse of behavioral targeting. Tagging and retrieving someone who has already shown an interest in your business is about as simple a use of the BT model as it gets. But it is not so simple any more, and like everything else in this complex ad economy, re-targeting too is in for a upgrade. Dynamic ad creation driven by recommendation engines offers new opportunities to marketers to be even more effective. Demands for greater accountability, control over placement and clearer attribution press the ad networks and tech providers to provide new levels of transparency. And just like everyone else in the ad economy, re-targeting is working its way through questions about metrics and pricing, do marketers optimize and pay according to clicks, conversions, purchase? And what role does retargeting now play in this larger field of audience creation and the age of the DSP?

Retargeting illustrates how online marketers have deployed armies of digital private detectives to shadow us online.  They watch us closely, take notes, even learn about us, and then appear when we don’t expect it.  Consumers shouldn’t have to confront such digital surveillance.  Retargeting is “Exhibit A” in making the case to lawmakers that consumer privacy online should be protected.

Questions should also be raised about retargeting and consumer protection.  Should I get a better discount because the data collected about me indicates I spend more or live in an expensive neighborhood? Or that because they believe I am a certain ethnicity, I might spend more on certain products.  Retargeting is a non-transparent marketing technique that raises important consumer protection issues about the use of digital advertising.  Consumers require a fair deal online.

PS:  Here’s how Google explains its retargeting service–which in typical Silicon Valley meets George Orwell fashion, it calls “remarketing’ [for the Google Content Network]: “Remarketing is extremely effective because it targets a highly-relevant audience. With it, you can target users who:

  • have visited your website or viewed specific product categories on your site
  • didn’t convert or who abandoned their shopping cart
  • have converted (in order to up- or cross-sell to them)

If you’re already driving traffic to your site through other means, like contextual targeting or your search ads, remarketing is a great complement to those efforts to increase your return-on-investment (ROI).”

and we believe in fair play.  Here’s what Microsoft says its “remessaging” service can do:   “After consumers visit your site, see one of your campaigns or click through on an ad, remessaging offers several ways to continue the conversation and ensure that your message is seen by the people to whom it matters most.  With site remessaging, you can re-engage a consumer to complete a purchase or further engage with your brand. Creative remessaging drives brand perception, awareness, and favorability, and enables advertisers to re-engage audiences who have seen or clicked on an existing campaign. Email remessaging complements email assets such as newsletters by placing tags and accessing the same email recipients to reinforce your message to a loyal audience.”

and Yahoo!:  “…Enhanced Retargeting, which combines standard site retargeting with dynamic ad generation. For example, users who visit an airline website to check offers for flights from SFO-JFK can be served a personalized offer for that specific flight when they visit a page within the Yahoo! Network. In a recent trial, a market-leading online travel company saw a 230% increase in total bookings and a 651% increase in click-through rate when comparing Enhanced Retargeting to their traditional retargeting campaign.  Recognizing the need for more focused audience segmentation and improved control, Yahoo! Search Marketing will offer advertisers Enhanced Targeting capabilities for Sponsored Search and Content Match programs. New features are designed to extend the advertiser’s control over where and when an ad is shown at both the campaign and ad group level, including what time of day and day of the week an advertiser would like campaigns to run (ad scheduling) and what age and gender they’d like to reach (demographic). Advertisers will be able to vary their bids for different segments in order to increase their ability to reach the desired audience.”

Online Ad Lobby and Chamber Celebrate Victory over Consumer Protection & FTC

Yesterday, the online ad lobby [IAB, ANA, DMA]–working with Chamber of Commerce–scored a major political victory by forcing the Financial reform bill conference committee to drop proposed provisions that would have strengthened the FTC.  Under the House bill, the FTC would have been given the same kind of regulatory authority most federal agencies have [APA rulemaking].  Marketers and advertisers are celebrating their win, because it keeps the FTC on a weakened and short political leash.  While consumer protection is significantly expanded because of the CFPB and new financial rules, the FTC is to remain largely hamstrung.  The online marketing and advertising lobby [including ANA, DMA–see below] were afraid that the newly invigorated FTC under Pres. Obama would require the industry to protect privacy online and also become more accountable to consumers engaged in e-commerce.   I heard IAB and Chamber are dancing in the streets! Congressmen Barney Frank, Henry Waxman and Sen. Rockefeller deserve praise for working hard to protect consumers, including their proposal on the FTC.

Here’s what two of the ad groups placed on their sites about the FTC issue:

Progress on FTC Enforcement Provisions in Wall Street Reform Conference

June 23, 2010

The marketing and media community has made substantial progress on defeating the broad expansion of FTC powers that is included in the House version of the Wall Street reform bill.  But we still need your assistance to keep these provisions out of the final bill.

Yesterday the Senate conferees presented an offer on the bill that rejected the new FTC powers that are in the House version.  Chairman Dodd indicated that while he may support changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking process, there is no Senate provision and these issues are too complex and important to be resolved in the context of the Wall Street reform bill.  Conferees hope to finish the conference this week so the final bill can be cleared for the President’s signature next month.

The House conferees may still continue to push for these provisions, so it is very important that marketers contact the Senate conferees to express our appreciation for their support and to urge them to remain strongly opposed to these new powers for the FTC in this bill.  Contact information for the Senate conferees is located here and our letter to Senate conferees is available here.  Please let the Senators know if you have plants or operations in their states.

ANA took part in a very important meeting yesterday with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller on these issues.  We argued that these issues are very important to the entire marketing community and deserve careful consideration outside of the context of the Wall Street reform bill.  The Chairman strongly indicated that he will continue to push for changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking procedures this year.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Dan Jaffe (djaffe@ana.net) or Keith Scarborough (kscarborough@ana.net) in ANA’s Washington, DC office at (202) 296-1883.

http://www.ana.net/advocacy/content/2418

DMA Asks Financial Reform Conferees to Keep FTC Expansion Out of ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act’

June 10, 2010 — The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today was joined by 47 other trade associations and business coalitions in sending a letter to each of the conferees on H.R. 4173, the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act” (RAFSA), urging them to keep language that would dramatically expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) out of the final bill.

As the House and Senate conferees work to reconcile their versions of the financial regulatory legislation, the associations — which represent hundreds of thousands of US companies from a wide array of industry segments — expressed strong opposition to provisions in the House version of the bill that would expand the FTC’s rulemaking and enforcement authority over virtually every sector of the American economy.

“The balance struck in the Senate bill is the right one,” said Linda Woolley, DMA’s executive vice president, government affairs.  “That bill makes the most sense in the context of financial reform legislation, maintaining the FTC’s existing jurisdiction without expanding its rulemaking and enforcement authority over industries and sectors that had nothing to do with the financial crisis.  Issues of FTC expansion deserve their own due consideration and debate in the more appropriate context of an FTC reauthorization, as has been done in the past.”

DMA and the other associations strongly believe that granting the FTC broad new authority is not a necessary or relevant response to the causes of the recent recession and, therefore, asked the conferees to oppose the inclusion of any provisions that would expand FTC authority, rather than making changes to the Commission that would have a fundamental impact on the entire business community and the broader American economy.

For more information please visit www.dmaaction.org.
http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1449