Here’s a link to the speech Mr. Gates gave at the CDT “gala” the other night. Note that Mr. Gates failed to address data collection related to marketing and advertising. Why? Because interactive advertising is Microsoft’s new business model. Mr. Gates and much of the industry wish to narrowly frame the debate, permitting both big business and government to have access to our data. Microsoft and its allies basically want a system where the default is data collection and microtargeting. What’s really needed are strong protections requiring an informed opt-in (which would require, for example, for Microsoft, Google, AOL, MySpace, etc. to precisely explain what is being collected and how it’s being used. Then ask for periodic affirmative permission).
Category: Time Warner
CBS Cashes in Via Public Policy–[I Mean Lobbying Muscle]
As we’ve written, media congloms such as CBS, NBC, Fox, Sinclair, Disney, Scripps have made a bundle off of a special-interest provision Congress gave them. Called “retransmission consent,” it’s permitted the already too-powerful to become even more so. At a time when nothing is being done to expand the public interest in the digital programming age, old media broadband bandits are raking it in. But they are doing so via a noxious public policy that should be revoked.
CBS’s new windfall is a good example. According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, the TV giant has “announced it has reached retransmission consent agreements with nine cable operators, covering over a million subscribers. The deals cover analog, digital, multicast and high-definition rights to CBS programming… CBS has sought 50 cents a subscriber in past dealings with cable operators and Verizon FiOS. A source familiar with the negotiations suggested that the new CBS deals are close to that figure.”
It’s time the public interest–and consumers–got a windfall. Media giants shouldn’t get government-sanctioned hand-outs (one that will be ultimately paid for by captive cable, phone and DBS subscribers). What’s needed is a new broadband policy that opens up the monopoly cable, phone and satellite giants to independent programmers. Let’s replace retranmission consent with the “Ensuring the Public Has Access to Independent, Diverse, Public Interest Digital Programming Act.”
Source:”CBS Gets Cash in Retrans Deal.” Michael Malone. B&C. 2/22/07
New Threats to Privacy: Interactive Ad Bureau (IAB) Hires D.C. Lobbyist
The interactive ad lobby–that includes most publishers of major newspapers, magazines and online outlets–is worried that consumer advocates might persuade Congress or the FTC to actually do something to protect digital privacy. Groups such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are alarmed that if consumers can actually control their data, the ability of digital marketers to collect, profile, track and target us will be threatened. So the IAB–which has a old and new media who’s who on its board–has brought in some political help. According to Online Media Daily:
“AIMING TO INCREASE ITS SWAY over government, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has opened a Washington, D.C. office and hired its first in-house lobbyist, Mike Zaneis…he and lobbyists from the Venable law firm have been talking with Congressional staffers on the IAB’s behalf. “We’ve been educating them on how the Internet works, and what the interactive advertising industry actually is and how it operates,” said Zaneis, who previously served as executive director of technology and e-commerce at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
Presumably, the IAB will be working alongside DC lobbyists for Google, Yahoo!, Time Warner and the like to ensure that our digital media platforms provide a direct connection to Madison Avenue’s data warehouses. But they should be ashamed for creating a business model where direct access to our data across countless online media properties needs to be defended by special interest lobbying tactics.
PS: We just saw the ClickZ story. It’s very telling what the new IAB DC lobbyist said:
“…Zaneis says his initial plan of is, “Putting together a public policy council, developing positions on key issues, and leveraging the contacts that I have on the Hill, and in the FTC and other places. And then it’s a take no prisoners attitude to advocate for our members.”
Yahoo! Exec Dissses Network Neutrality
A Yahoo! News Vice-President just called the battle to restore network nondiscrimination to U.S. broadband a “tempest in a teapot.” That’s according to a blog post from Celia Wexler of Common Cause. Scott Moore, the Yahoo! exec. was also reported saying that “in a competitive media marketplace, any company that withheld content that people wanted would find those individuals choosing another cable or broadband provider.” It’s clear he doesn’t cover the media industry! We’re not surprised that high-ups at Yahoo! would see network neutrality as something less than important to fight for. Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft know they have the clout–and the business partnerships–to ensure their content and service gets carried by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner. We have also heard–via the Hill–that Google has largely been missing in action when it comes to the net neutral fight.
Ultimately, the big online companies will make their deal with NCTA and USTA. That’s why we urge readers not to believe that network neutrality is some kind of magic digital bullet. Having neutrality alone will not give us the democratic digital media system the country requires. Nor is it certain that Congress will pass anytime soon any policy that truly democratizes the country’s broadband infrastructure. NGO’s and others will still need to build a system, via the marketplace, that places the public interest before profits (although with sites and services that can still makes lots of money to help make sustainable civic expression and social justice work).
The Corrupt Telecom Law Helping Boost Fox Business Channel
Just a quick reminder to those interested in learning more about the new big business booster Fox Business Channel. The channel’s guarantee of all too rare carriage by the cable monopoly is made possible because of a corrupt law passed by (the still Democratic-controlled under the influence of the NAB) Congress back in 1992. “Retransmission consent”–a policy that has given tens of billions of dollars worth of cable, satellite, and now telephone (Verizon, etc.) channels to big broadcasters such as Fox, Disney/ABC; Scripps, Sinclair, CBS and others–is a huge scandal. The law has enabled the already too powerful to become ever more so. It is even being used now to extend the power of the largest television broadcasters onto the key broadband platforms controlled by cable and phone companies. That’s why companies such as Disney/ABC are silent now about the killing-off of network neutrality: they got their access via retranmission consent deals.
Murdoch’s Fox has used “retrans” consent to help get prime position cable carriage for its new pro-business channel from such key gatekeepers as Comcast and Time Warner (he also used the leverage of renewing the carriage for Fox News. Of course, Murdoch’s control over DirecTV has also helped boost Fox’s distribution). We don’t have time now to go into this (plug: I cover this issue in my book). But the point here is that media advocates should press for the repeal of retrans consent. It should be replaced by a universal access to all programming content rule where all platforms–PC, mobile, and cable/satellite/IPTV–must be fully open to all content. No “triple plays” for a powerful handful; no Mafia-like retrans deals where media giants carve up the digital TV and broadband `pie.’ It’s time to dismantle the gatekeepers.
Conflict of Interest: Why NY Times, Wash Post, USAToday, CNN, NBC & More Should Acknowledge Role Promoting Threats to Privacy and other Interactive Marketing Problems
Interactive advertising and marketing are helping shape the transformation of the media, here in the U.S. and everywhere else. A infrastructure is being put in place, without the public’s consent, designed to better sell to us 24/7. It’s using some of the most powerful communications technologies ever created to do so. Among the key issues society should be debating right now include the need for privacy safeguards to protect our personal information online, and what kind of limits should be put in place to check the excesses of interactive marketing (think personalized ads flooding your PC, mobile and TV screens, propelled by a data profile of you created via artificial intelligence technologies, and designed to get you to feel or think in a way positive to the brand).
But critical commentary about interactive advertising is largely missing from the ever-present coverage of the digital marketplace. Each day, major papers run stories in their business section about the latest triumph of technology or company. But too rarely do they examine the negative consequences, let alone the role of their own publisher or media firm. One glaring omission by such major news outlets as the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, etc. is the relationship they have with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The IAB is a trade group whose mission is “helping online, Interactive broadcasting, email, wireless and Interactive television media companies increase their revenues.†Among its goals include: “[T]o prove and promote the effectiveness of Interactive advertising to advertisers, agencies, marketers & press;†and “[T]o be the primary advocate for the Interactive marketing and advertising industry.â€
On the board of the IAB include officials from the New York Times Company (Martin Nisenholtz, its leading digital exec); Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, Cox Newspapers, USA Today, NBC, CNN, and Disney. They work alongside board members representing Google, AOL, Conde Nast (attention New Yorker magazine!), Verizon, Comcast, Yahoo!, Forbes and others.
There is a clear conflict of interest here when newspapers, television, and online news report on interactive marketing and have a representative helping direct the key group promoting the industry. These news outlets should be disclosing their membership in the IAB and any other industry trade group (which have a political or marketplace mission). Editors at the Times, Post and other papers should commission stories which more effectively analyze the digital marketing industry, including raising the critical issues which the public should debate. They must also prominently disclose their conflict of interest with the IAB as they report on the industry they are working to serve.
Congressional Dems: Why Help out MPAA When its Members Oppose Network Neutrality?
Today’s New York Times has a story about leading Hill Democrats prostrating themselves before the star-power lobbyists of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) [“Hollywood Takes it Concerns about Piracy and Taxes to Washington†Reg. required] Among the Democratic leaders receiving visits included Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Sen. Pat Leahy and Sen. Chuck Schumer. As the article reported, the MPAA “put on a daylong show for lawmakers, lobbyists and Capitol Hill aides, armed with some A-list talent…†Among the stars helping the industry fly its political flag were Will Smith and Clint Eastwood. Amazingly, part of the Hollywood pol spin was that it was pro-“working class.â€
But MPAA’s members include companies opposed to network neutrality for U.S. broadband. Other members have allied themselves with the anti-open broadband cause. MPAA member Warner Bros. Entertainment, controlled by cable giant Time Warner, is one of the leading opponents of network neutrality. Sony Pictures is a partner with anti-open Net ringleader Comcast. The Walt Disney Company no longer supports a national open broadband policy (given its own dealings with Comcast and others, it has reversed its once open Net stance). NBC Universal and Murdoch’s Fox, the other two MPAA members, also support the anti-net neutrality status quo (of course, most MPAA companies have used their political clout to secure additional access to digital and broadband distribution, via retransmission consent).
There should be no tax breaks for Hollywood or help with “piracy†until the organization comes out for restoring network neutrality. Star-struck Democratic lawmakers who support network neutrality should tell the MPAA its Hill agenda is in “turnaround†until they agree to a national non-discriminatory policy for U.S. broadband.
The Brandwashing of America: Micropersuasion in the Digital Era. Adapted from my new book, Digital Destiny
(The following commentary was published by Advertising Age online, Jan. 9, 2007)
‘Digital Destiny’ Author Jeff Chester on How New Media Is Causing the Brandwashing of America
Published: January 09, 2007
We are witnessing the creation of the most powerful media and communications system ever developed. A flood of compelling video images propelled by the interactivity of the internet will be delivered though digital TVs, PCs, cellphones, digital video recorders, iPods, and countless mobile devices. These technologies will surround us, immerse us, always be on, wherever we are — at home, work or play.
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Jeff Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, Washington a nonprofit policy group focusing on digital communications. | ALSO: Comment on this issue in the ‘Your Opinion’ box below. |
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Related Story: America Is Being ‘Brandwashed’ Claims Author |
Following our travels
Much of the programming will be personalized, selected by us with the help of increasingly sophisticated, but largely invisible, technologies that will “sense” or “know” our interests, dislikes, and habits. Information about our travels — in cyber and real space — will be collected and stored, most often without our awareness. Our personal data will be the basis of computerized profiles that quickly generate commercial pitches honed to precisely fit our psychology and behavior.
A ubiquitous system of micropersusaion is emerging, where the potent forces of new media are being unleashed to influence our individual behavior. From the ad industry’s initiatives to better perfect measures such as “engagement,” to the MI4 research effort (Measurement Initiative for Advertising, Agencies, Media and Researchers) to harness the power of the unconscious mind, to the rapid evolution of “rich media” virtual applications, a marketing technological “arms race” is underway that will further permeate advertising and marketing in our daily lives.
Wherever we are — online or in the street connected by mobile devices — Americans (and much of the world) will be increasingly influenced by the technologies of digital marketing. Such a system will be greatly aided by the scores of supplemental “real world” marketing efforts, including teams of viral street marketers and brand evangelists (many of whom are not yet old enough to vote!).
Increasing power
The ad industry likes to claim that the public has more control over what advertising they see or whether they like it at all. Many Ad Age readers point to the increasing expansion of the media and argue that advertising is now less powerful. But such assertions are disingenuous. Fueled by global media consolidation, advertisers are now working even more closely with content companies. Product placement has morphed into “program” placement and beyond. Like radio and the early days of broadcast TV, marketing, distribution and content are increasingly seamless. The broadband internet, digital TV and new forms of mobile communications are all being shaped by the forces of marketing. As I argue in my new book, “Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy,” advertising is becoming more powerful, not less.
In the book, I chronicle the ad industry’s role in helping shape the early development of the internet, including how groups and companies such as the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), Procter & Gamble Co., and The New York Times promoted what was once called the “Internet Advertising Ecosystem.” It covers the evolution of the “one-to-one,” “new media” marketing paradigm that still serves as the industry’s basic digital blueprint (further fueled today by sophisticated off- and online data collection, web analytics, interactivity and the branding power of video). The ad industry’s substantial research and political infrastructure — including ARF, Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Interactive Advertising Bureau, its many councils and committees and global groups such as Esomar — are also explained.
From online “behavioral targeting” to interactive ad networks to “virtual hosts” and other “socially intelligent interfaces,” the book attempts to lay bare what marketers plan for the country’s “digital destiny.” Although readers of Ad Age know well what is now underway and its likely impact, the public is largely uninformed. One of my goals is to encourage a meaningful national debate about the current direction of the ad and marketing industry and its impact on society.
Let consumers decide
One of the most serious concerns is about privacy. Most marketers and advertisers are opposed to permitting consumers/users to have real control over their data. They want the default to be the collection of information so we can be precisely targeted. That’s why privacy groups, including my own Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), want Congress to pass legislation requiring a full disclosure of what information is being collected, via what method, and how it is to be used. After examining such details, each consumer would decide on a periodic basis whether to agree to permit the collection of their data (known as “opt-in”).
The current “opt-out” system, where consumers have to proactively seek to place their personal information off-limits, is designed to ensure that most consumers consent by default to data collection. New threats to our privacy from marketers and advertisers have emerged, including behavioral targeting, online retargeting (where consumers are digitally shadowed over ad networks), and the emergence of “intelligent ad engines” placed in cellphones and other mobile devices.
Recently, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group jointly filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to declare many of today’s interactive advertising industry practices, including behavioral targeting and virtual advertising, unfair and deceptive. It appears that the FTC is now slowly lifting its head out of the digital sand to seriously investigate the industry based on our complaint. But it will take prodding from the new Congress to get the FTC to act.
Safeguards for new technology
Beyond privacy, interactive-marketing technologies also raise unique concerns about “vulnerable” populations. Unleashing personalized and cyber-virtual marketing to children, teens, prescription-drug users, and the elderly raise important questions related to public health. These groups will need to be protected with new safeguards. But even more is at stake. The entire system of interactive advertising must become more transparent and requires intense public scrutiny, debate, and — where needed — effective public policies.
For example, advertisers are now working to harness the power of our emotions through research on “neuroscience” and “psychophysiology.” As the ARF and AAAA explained in 2005 during Advertising Week, the industry wants to “capture unconscious thought, recognition of symbols and metaphors.”
“Emotional responses can be created even if we have no awareness of the stimuli that caused them,” the ARF and AAAA noted. Such potential manipulation of a consumer’s unconscious will be even more powerful when delivered by virtual agents (such as avatars) that have been fashioned (via data profiling) to dovetail with our desires and interests.
What’s the long-term impact?
I fear that such a powerful psychosocial stealth-marketing machine, backed by the yearly expenditure of many billions of marketing dollars, will drive personal consumption to greater excess. What will be the impact on our environment, such as global warming, as a steady stream of interactive marketing messages are planted deep into our brains wherever we go? Will the digital push to buy and positively associate with brands promote an even more narcissistic human culture? What will be the impact of our personalized communications marketing system on the healthy development of children, families and communities?
The ad and marketing industries have an important role to play in our society, especially helping financially support news, information, and entertainment services. I recognize that advertising will continue to be a very powerful force in our lives. But marketers need to demonstrate greater social responsibility. They must ensure that consumers fully understand and consent to digital techniques; make certain that approaches to target our emotions and other brain behaviors are truly safe (including the impact of virtual reality); and, most importantly, help our media system evolve in a way that strengthens civil society.
Such a goal is not for the U.S. alone, but also involves how the marketing industry serves the public in the developing world. For example, what will be the impact on the world environment as China’s emerging digital infrastructure is bombarded with one-to-one commercial messages promoting automobiles?
The creation of a broadband media system will be viewed by future generations as one of our society’s most significant accomplishments. Will it be seen as one of the highest achievements for a democracy, a place in cyberspace that helped enrich the lives of many and offered new opportunities for an outpouring of cultural and civic expression? Or will it been seen years hence as a new version of what the late scholar Neil Postman aptly described as a medium even more capable of “amusing ourselves to death”? The readers of Ad Age will help determine that answer.
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This column was adapted from Mr. Chester’s new book “Digital Destiny” (The New Press, 2007).
Beware the “new†AT&T: Time for a national citizens’ “Broadband Watchâ€
Fresh from its merger approval by the FCC, AT&T (nee SBC) took out a two-page color ad in the New York Times today. Their PR pitch floats over a picture of our planet’s atmosphere. Like fellow broadband super-monopolist Comcast, the “new†AT&T clearly has imperial ambitions. It desires to dominate both network connections and digital content.
Read their ad copy to see what I mean: “AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular have come together. Creating the nation’s largest provider of broadband, wireless and voice services and the world leader in IP networking. Three companies, now united to deliver the complete picture of communications and entertainment to every screen…â€
Note the word “entertainment,†signaling the real goal for the broadband giant. They will use their network power to push all kinds of programming which pleases big brand advertisers and major content producers (think Viacom, Fox, etc).
The FCC should have rejected the AT&T/BellSouth deal. Commissioners Copps and Adelstein did what they could—heroically so. But the multimedia mega merger illustrates why public interest advocates must push for anti-trust and merger reform for the media and telecommunications sector. Otherwise (as I note in my new book), we will soon see phone and cable companies merge with new media companies (think Yahoo! or Google) and also swallow up newspapers, broadcasters and the like.
But we can’t count on the policy process to deliver any semblance of real reform. That’s why activists need to examine closely how AT&T and other broadband giants operate the network. It’s not the private fiefdom of AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, etc. The digital media system is also a public trust, requiring serious citizen and activist oversight. From issues related to network capacity, to deals made with content providers, to how phone and cable companies address public interest content online, via mobile device, and with digital TV, this network (like this Land) is yours and mine. In each community, teams of activists should work with experts to monitor what AT&T and others do—reporting the good, bad, and ugly to city councils, the press, etc. We must proactively redistribute the balance of power when it come to how broadband serves the U.S. public.
Time Magazine: You’ve Got Hypocrisy
Time’s person of the year issue named You– and everyone else—as its annual award recipient. Hailing what it called “Citizens of the New Digital Democracy,†the Time Warner flagship publication breathlessly published a series of exuberant articles about how the new media is dramatically changing our country and the world. “You control the Information age†claimed the magazine headline, complete with a mirror-like cover device so you could admire yourself. But the failure of Time to seriously address the key issues raised by Web 2.0 and broadband illustrates the many hurdles to overcome if we are to have any semblance of a digital democracy.
Perhaps the best example of Time’s failure to truly be honest with readers/users was its failure to address the elimination of network neutrality. Time magazine’s parent company is one of the corporate leaders opposed to an open and non-discriminatory Internet. Time Warner is part of the cable industry lobbying apparatus that has eliminated broadband non-discrimination in the U.S. If Time Warner–and its allies Comcast, Verizon and AT&T–have their way, a handful of cable and phone conglomerates will actually determine much of our digital destiny. These old media giants want to extend their monopolies into the digital era, ensuring that their content receives preferential treatment; that broadband becomes a pay as your surf and post toll-road; and that they become powerful barons of the digital domain.
Time magazine should have acknowledged that its parent company is opposed to limits on media consolidation. It wishes to own as much of cable as it can (so it could continue to swallow up cable systems, such as what it and Comcast recently did when they carved up giant Adelphia cable). The magazine should have acknowledged that its parent once before had predicted great things for the U.S. public with new media—when AOL and Time Warner merged in what was then the largest media merger in U.S. history. It should have acknowledged the numerous lies given by Time Warner executives to shareholders, consumers, and policymakers when it claimed to be a sound and public-minded deal.
The cover story should have acknowledged how the new media poses great threats to our privacy, as data is collected about our every move by AOL and many others. It should have discussed how Time Warner’s AOL made public our personal search data, and also turned over records about our searches to the Bush Administration. Instead of mindlessly claiming that to see the future of our media we should look at raw videos on YouTube, it should have said that the public should learn about how Time Warner’s interactive ad subsidiary—Advertising.com—targets us with personalized digital marketing.
As we discuss in our new book—out tomorrow—much of today’s new media “vision†is driven by a desire to create a stronger mechanism for personalized and targeted interactive marketing. Companies such as Time Warner, Google, and Yahoo want to combine the branding power of video with the data collecting and interactive capabilities of the Internet. It will be a digital democracy shaped by Madison Avenue. That was the vision originally developed for our new media future by AOL and Time Warner’s leaders Steve Case and Richard Parsons. Much of Web 2.0 is based on that vision: a system designed to promote the “brandwashing†of America.
Yes, we have endless possibilities with new media, including the Web 2.0 paradigm. But powerful political and economic forces will shape what ultimately develops. If Time Warner has its way, they will hold a key copyright over our digital democracy.