NebuAd’s “360-degree, multidimensional view” of users

It’s time the FTC and the online ad industry redefined Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to reflect the realities of the interactive marketing era: it must include the bits of data about us which describe and analyze our behaviors, now classified as non-PII. Such so-called non-PII tracking is really linked to individuals. The role that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play in providing behavioral targeting and other interactive marketing firms with our data requires an investigation. Take NebuAd, a company that explains: “[T]o date, the role of service providers (ISPs) has been limited to enabling, but not participating in, the online advertising revenue ecosystem. NebuAd creates a greater market opportunity for the entire online advertising ecosystem, opening new revenue possibilities for ISPs that preserve and enhance the interests of the advertisers, publishers and consumers on their networks.” NebuAd also says that it is the “leading the industry to a new level of advertising effectiveness. NebuAd combines web-wide consumer activity data with reach into any site on the Internet. The result is vastly more data and relevance than existing solutions that are limited to one network or site. NebuAd is dedicated to the highest standards of consumer privacy.” In fact, the company touts its membership in Truste and claims that it is “committed to the highest standards of consumer privacy. NebuAd’s network was architected from the ground up to meet industry best-practices regarding consumer information privacy protection.”

But in this week’s “Behavioral Insider,” NebuAd’s CEO says the following (our emphasis): “We don’t track individual consumers… by anonymous we mean we collect no personally identifiable email addresses, last names, home addresses, social security or phone numbers, financial or health information. The kind of data we do aggregate includes Web search terms, page views, page and ad clicks, time spent on specific sites, zip code, browser info and connection speed...within this vast universe of information we create a map of interest categories, beginning with the widest definitions, auto, finance, education, what have you. But within those we can provide far greater granularity. So if you’re talking about auto, we can drill down into particular interest segments, say SUVs, luxury cars, minivans, and then even to particular brands or models. Within the interest category of travel, we can identify consumers interested in learning about Martinique, the south of France or Las Vegas.”

How do they do that? Why, they get ISPs to turn over our data. Here the Nebu Ad CEO again (with our emphasis): “ISPs have been a neglected aspect of online’s evolution over the past several years. But the fact is the depth of aggregated data they have to offer, anonymous data, is an untapped source of incredible power… The conventional approach to behavioral targeting has been to place cookies on specific Web sites or pages. We’ve gone about it in a very different way. We place an appliance in the ISP itself. Therefore we’re able to get a 360-degree, multidimensional view over a long period of time of all the pages users visit. So what we’re really talking about for the first time is a truly user-focused, though still anonymous, targeting, taking the totality of anonymous behaviors rather than just a subset of sites on a network.”

Huh? That’s privacy protection? ISPs are going to have a lot of explaining to do about the “appliance” (built by the NSA?) watching us. I think the company better reconvene its new “Privacy Council.”

PS: Here’s an excerpt from the press release NebuAd issued at ad:tech two weeks ago: “NebuAd’s rich insight into consumer interests surpasses any other behavioral targeting solution and enables NebuAd to deliver precisely targeted ads that drive substantially increased value per impression…NebuAd’s deep insight into anonymous consumer commercial interests across the Internet, combined with its ability to micro-target the most relevant ad placements, brings a new level of value for advertisers, publishers and ISPs..”

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