Category: Facebook

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 “personally identifiable information” and “non-personally
identifiable information ” that is used for “online preference marketing.”
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 General’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Network Advertising Initiative principles that will soon be outdated, as new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 plaintiffs’ 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

CDD Publishes new report on widgets, third-party apps: "The Facebook Economy"

My CDD commissioned a report from investigative journalist Adam Mayle that examines Facebook and the growing universe of third-party applications. The report, available via here, examines some of the data collection and privacy issues from these Facebook-related services.

Here’s a short excerpt: “But while this platform has benefited many, it raises concerns about user privacy. Because of their deep integration into Facebook, developers have extensive access to user information, but it is often unclear if, when and how they exploit this data. This situation is perpetuated by Facebook’s unwillingness to regulate the widgets that operate on the site. As a result, users often have no idea who is collecting their data, how information is obtained as one interacts with these applications and how such data – even so- called not non-personally identifiable information – is subsequently used. By eschewing liability and placing the burden of responsibility on developers to police their own applications, Facebook unnecessarily exposes its users to cyber-threats like adware, malware and hackers. In many ways, Facebook has created a
dynamic social network, but because of the practices that it has adopted, it needlessly places the privacy and security of its users in harm’s way.”

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Brand Marketing and Social Media

Brand marketers, including movie studios, apparently love those “viral” applications to help drive ticket sales. We will have more to say about this topic soon, including at the FTC. At yesterday’s Social Media Business School “class,” the veterans from the digital ad business (meaning those somewhat over thirty) schooled the mostly in their twenties hungry developers about hitting the big time with the largest brand advertisers. The session I attended focused on the question: “What are Brands looking for in Social Advertising: eyeballs, interactions or engagement.”

I hope brands are also looking for corporate responsibility. There will be many–including my group–which do.

Can Social Media Find a Business Model That Protects Privacy?

It’s clear that many of those trying to monetize third-party applications are pushing the privacy envelope. For example, at yesterday’s “Social Media Business School” event in San Francisco, one panel on “Performance Advertising” discussed “[H]ow to turn clicks and leads and other forms of user response into cash.”

Social media leaders better change the ” P” in the acronym CPA (cost per action) to mean Privacy.

Microsoft is set to acquire behavioral microtargeting and “marketing automation” specialist YaData. YaData’s software helps identify “behavioral micro-segments” [thats our behaviors, btw]. As YaData explains, “[M]icro-segments may overlap, reflecting the true multi-dimensional nature of customers and their changing habits. The continuous dynamic discovery and management of focused micro-segments allows marketers to understand and act upon changing market trends and gain rapid results for a real competitive differentiator. In order to act upon these changes, it is vital that marketers be able to routinely and autonomously launch the discovery process and manage the entire segment lifecycle…” [the managing, we presume, is of people’s behaviors and attitudes].

“YaData fully believes in the potential of behavioral targeting to enhance the value of online advertising for publishers, advertisers and users,” said Amir Peleg” in the press release announcing the sale. Microsoft officials claimed that as YaData’s technology became part of the company’s “advertising platform” they would “continue to adhere to its high standards for the protection of consumer privacy.” As Microsoft moves closer to acquiring Yahoo!, privacy advocates will need to analyze how the company’s recent acquisitions and developments related to online advertising require real safeguards–not just a reflexive we-care-about-privacy approach.

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IAB’s new “Privacy Principles”=A Failure to Protect Consumer Privacy

The IAB has embraced a `circle the data collection and micro-targeting digital wagon’s’ with its new privacy principles. Instead of embracing a policy that truly protects consumer privacy, IAB members are trying to hide behind the same failed approach they have led to governmental inquiries in the US and the EU. The IAB should have adopted rules so that no data can be collected without full disclosure and prior consent of the consumer, as well as other fair information collection principles. The IAB’s proposed new PR campaign to promote the role of interactive marketing will undoubtedly by slick–but won’t be honest. That’s why my CDD will keep telling the FTC, the EU and the public about what really goes on with data collection and digital marketing. These slightly refurbished fox-watching-the-data-hen-house-privacy principles won’t provide any substantive protections for consumers. The failure of the IAB to acknowledge key issues related to sensitive data–including children, teens, financial (think subprime mortgage-related) and health–is a glaring failure of the group’s ability to do what is required to protect consumer privacy.

The IAB is trying to help its members dodge the digital privacy data bullet. But privacy advocates and officials concerned about consumer welfare in the digital age will eventually force the needed changes. What’s sad is that instead of playing a leadership role in the privacy debate, the IAB is attempting to stick with the past. Don’t they realize that change is coming?

Microsoft/Yahoo! privacy & merger watch: Yahoo! is "largest behavioral targeting network" according to its Blue Lithium subsidiary

Yesterday, the behavioral targeting firm and Yahoo! subsidiary Blue Lithium gave a lunch time presentation at the OMMA Behavioral Targeting conference. The Yahoo!/Blue Lithium representatives discussed how “Yahoo! was the largest behavioral targeting network,” even prior to its acquisition of Blue Lithium. They talked about the “amount of knowledge we have about users,” including the “deep information” on its “hundreds of millions” of users. Yahoo!, they claimed, had a treasure trove of user data for its targeting “engine,” including search clicks, page views, ad views, and clicks. Yahoo!, they explained, “has spent time and money” to build an ad targeting system that can use all this data, with 400 distinct “categories and models.” Yahoo! has “scale” and “unprecedented reach.” They made a point of noting that [for now], Google doesn’t use behavioral targeting. The representatives also boosted about Blue Lithium’s retargeting capabilities, and that they can target with “specific messages,” and “identify the people that clicked.”  The retargeting is followed up with a “call to action” they noted.

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Microsoft’s quest for Yahoo!—Follow (Your!) Data…or Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, it’s off to harvest your data we go

We will be covering the proposed takeover, from both the online advertising business and privacy side. Here’s a revealing tidbit from BusinessWeek on what Microsoft hopes to achieve from a deal: “What’s more, the company is hoping to bring together Yahoo’s research and development staff, who’ve done innovative work in online advertising auction theory and data-mining, with its own online lab.”

Yes, a key to analyzing this deal–if it happens–is what are the consequences when Microsoft’s adCenter merges with Yahoo!’s Panama and other data mining assets. That’s why it’s important to keep a spotlight on what Google and Microsoft, among others, plan to do. Here’s an example of where we are headed, courtesy of Microsoft’s adLab demonstration this week [via Clickz]: “Online advertising has been centered around keywords for too long,” said Tarek Najm, an engineer for Microsoft’s advertising and business intelligence systems, adding the “next wave of advertising is going to use new algorithms and technologies” that display ads based on consumer intent.”

Microsoft’s Digital Ad Vision: Part 2

From this week’s Microsoft’s “Strategic Update [Feb. 4, 2008]. Excerpt:

“Advertising is a key part of a number of the opportunities that I talked about, and the key probably right now for us to continue to grow our advertising footprint starts with what we’re doing with search and portal. We have made good progress in that business. It is growing. Since our start four years ago, we now have what I would call a very credible search product, a very credible advertising platform. We’ve got good trajectory. This was, in some senses, the best time for us to ask ourselves, what else can we do to make ourselves even more effective in this business?
And in a sense, the fact that we’re in a stronger position now than we were 12 months ago actually makes this an easier acquisition to consider, even though, as I said in my letter to Jerry Yang, we did have discussions a year ago with Yahoo! about combining the businesses. People say, what are you doing here? Well, what we’re trying to do is take some momentum that we have and ask, how do we really increase that momentum even further? What else can we do?
And the truth is, either on our own efforts or, hopefully, now that we’ve proposed this acquisition, on our efforts merged together with Yahoo!, there are really four things we get a chance to work on. First and foremost is to expand our R&D capacity. We’re going to have to innovate like crazy to get the position want to have in this market. We’re going to have to innovate in the ad platform. We’re going to have to innovate in core search. We’re going to have to invest in new, emerging user experiences —mobile, social media, video, entertainment experience. We need the R&D capability to really compete with the market leader.
We continue to hire people and transfer people. But in fact, bringing together Microsoft and Yahoo! will allow us, because of the fantastic engineering talent both at Yahoo! and at Microsoft, we get more capacity more quickly. We get a chance to not have to think so much about how do we not use the capacity we have, but how do we deploy this incredible team to make sure that we’re doing everything and more that the market leader might be doing?”

Ad Age on some of the methods used with online advertising (inc. for Google & Microsoft)

from Abbey Klaassen’s 2.4.08 article on Microsoft’s proposed Yahoo! takeover, entitled “They’ll still be Chasing Google.” [excerpt]: “The merger could also provide advertisers with a broader suite of online ad offerings and allow them to better integrate their search ads with display, video and even in-game units. In theory, at least, the combination of those formats allows marketers to influence consumers’ opinions about a product or brand, create demand for that brand and fulfill or track that demand through a transaction such as a search. It also allows them to measure and attribute the value of the different types of ads consumers encounter on the path to a purchase — for example whether John Doe has seen a display ad, and is then prompted to search for the product advertised.”