House targets behavior-based Web Ads
admin | May 23, 2010 | Comments 1
The Can Spam Act and “Do not call” were government responses to a public outcry to eliminate pesky irrelevant interruption marketing tactics from intruding into our valuable yet fleeting personal time.
Now, new potential legislation is taking on these sneaky tactics that lie beneath “personalized” web ads.
Recently U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher (VA-09), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and Cliff Stearns, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, released a discussion draft of legislation to assure the privacy of information about individuals both on the Internet and offline. Boucher said, “Our legislation confers privacy rights on individuals, informing them of the personal information that is collected and shared about them and giving them greater control over the collection, use and sharing of that information. ”
The draft bill further examines a touchy subject: The Disclosure of information to unaffiliated parties: Many websites work with third-party advertising networks, which collect information about a person or an IP address from numerous websites, create a profile and target ads based on that profile.
The bill creates an exception to the opt-in consent of Can Spam 2003 with a new requirement for third-party information sharing by zapping in an opt-out of consent to the sharing of an individual’s information with a third-party ad network.
Recently, a controversial report which we sponsored, Leveraging Loyalty to Transform Publishing, has come under attack. The report polled magazine subscribers and asked if they would respond to personalized ads on an electric e-reader or ipad. Over 1,000 people polled, and 59% said NO. But, e-purist claimed that this is not true; stating that the i-community enjoys online advertising even the report and now the government indicated otherwise.
What are your thoughts? Should the web have the same type of regulation as offline and email?
Filed Under: Featured
I’m conflicted.
As an avid user of web services it is often convenient to me when a site has my information pre-populated. I do, however, prefer that this be as the result of an opt-in, not because there is a relationship – sometimes several generations removed – between a site I normally use and another site I happen to stumble on or find through a link.
In fact, I tend to see what information they have to track where it came from – but that is because it’s part of my business to watch these things.
It’s no different than the many ways I style my name to track who is selling my name for direct mail blasts.
I think I’ve come down on the side of wanting disclosure from a site if they are affiliated with a network, sell user data, or even just share it – and that disclosure needs to be easily accessible, not buried in microtext at the bottom of a 7 screen long home page or in a hard to find privacy policy.
Cheers, Pat