Tracking the Surfers but beware of the Sharks. On Line Ad Companies face Stricter Control and Enforcement
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Earlier this month I reported on the fiasco of the Article 29 Working Party's Opinion which favoured prior opt in before cookies are attached to your PC or laptop to track future on line activity. Now a new system to police privacy abuses by companies that track consumer' on line behaviour for targeted advertising purposes is about to be launched in the US.
The Federal Trade Commission in the US has made in abundantly clear to the advertising industry that, as Peder Magee, senior attorney at the FTC said according to the Wall Street Journal, advertising businesses are sophisticated and complicated and if they can collect, use and monetize data they can find a way to make their practices more transparent to consumers. The same attitude has been adopted by EU and regulators across the world.
In response the Internet Advertising Bureau, IAB, in the US and UK, have been pushing members to adopt best practice guidelines. Now though a new business called the Better Advertising Project is launching technology which tracks the trackers. The software it has developed allows consumers to see which companies are tracking them as they surf the web. 300,000 people have volunteered in the US to use the software so the Better Advertising Project can send information to the Council for Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association in the US. Initial reports are that more than 250 companies were tracked collecting and using consumer data.
The idea is that if a company is then found to be violating industry principles and refuse to respond to warnings from self regulatory bodies, their actions will be reported to government bodies with greater powers. While no such proposals have yet surfaced in the UK it is likely the technical innovation will spread across the Atlantic fairly swiftly. Advertisers and their agencies in the EU need to act to be more transparent. The proposal to place a universally agreed icon on websites and advertisements to alert consumers if their activities on a web page are being tracked giving them the option to opt out of such tracking appears the only way forward.
IAB UK is submitting a set of proposals to the EU to demonstrate that self regulation is effective in protecting consumers and that the Art 29 Working Party Opinion is an overly restrictive interpretation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. According to New Media Age Nick Stringer, IAB head of regulatory affairs said "we are proposing aims to enhance transparency and give users greater control". AOL, AudienceScience, Crimtan, Google, Microsoft, Specific Media and Yahoo were the first seven digital companies to be independently audited in April pursuant to the IABs behavioral targeting best practice principles. Amongst other things these companies promote the IABs consumer facing website Your On Line Choices which gives further information to consumers about privacy on line and behavioural advertising.
All this matters because companies could well fall foul of legislation and self regulatory codes if active steps to warn consumers about tracking and to protect data are not adhered to. In future monitoring activity of on line advertising companies is clearly going to be easier and best practice needs to be adopted, not only to protect consumers but to protect brand reputation.
