Advertisers have grown much more sophisticated since the early days of the web and can now target us with increasing precision using a wider range of behavioral data than ever before. In spite of that – or perhaps because of it – the advertising industry plans to start including a transparent mechanism this summer that can give you a hint as to why particular advertisements found you and provide unprecedented controls to control or even stop them.
The solution dictates that ad networks include a standard icon within web-based ads that lets users access their behavioral profile on the ad network in question. Users will also be able to opt out from being targeted by ads that rely on their profiles.
The industry did not decide to do this on its own, but because the Federal Trade Commission called on advertisers to regulate their own targeted advertising early last year. Advertisers formed a cross-industry coalition to figure out how to serve ads that are customized to consumers' recent and past behavior, without scaring users or drawing more government scrutiny. (Members include the American Association of Advertisers Agency, the Association of National Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Direct Marketing Association and the Council of Better Business Bureaus.)
"Behavioral advertising is important to advertising and to the future of the internet,'" said Lee Peeler, vice president of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. "The industry wanted to respond positively to the challenges that the Federal Trade Commission put in front of it, when it said 'We want to see you do this on a self-regulatory basis.'"
If advertisers fail to do so, they could face harsher rules, such as limitations on what sorts of data they can collect in the first place (including health and financial), regardless of how they use it.
This effort contains lots of moving parts, so it's impressive that we're only a couple months from seeing mandatory targeted-ad standards put into place. Why mandatory? The Council of Better Business Bureau is seeking software to detect targeted ads that lack these mechanisms, and Peeler says it will report non-complying ad networks to the FTC. Its compliance tool will check for all the elements of these principles: an icon, likely to be found in the same corner of all targeted ads, a link to a user's profile on that ad network, and a way for people to opt out of receiving targeted ads from it.
These rules stop short of limiting what kind of data marketers can collect or detailing to consumers exactly what past behaviors created their profiles. Plus, they're focused primarily on the web. Mobile apps, with their ability to see where you are, and more about what you're doing, are still somewhat of an afterthought in this effort. Regardless, allowing people to see their advertising profile – and letting them opt out of ad targeting, if they're discomfited by what they see there -- is a step forward for consumers.
Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said Google's profile manager -- which allows consumers to view the profile advertisers have created about them and opt out – can be considered the model for these principles.
"Instead of saying 'you went to these five car sites,' [Google profile manager] says, 'we believe you are interested in cars.' Consumers can say 'yes, I am,' or 'no' -- or they can say 'I'm just going to opt out of targeting because I don't like this.'"
Surprisingly, advertisers could actually gather more information through consumers voluntarily editing their ad profiles than they lose from consumers opting out. In that way, this initiative could actually offer advertisers more grist for their ad-targeting mill, rather than less.
"[Google] said publicly that three to four times as many people customize their profiles than the number who opt out," added Zaneis. "They're actually getting increased consumer engagement and better profiles, and thus you can make the assumption that they're going to have a higher click-through rate."
Advertisers are free to use whatever system they wish to comply with these principles (the icon, the profile link and the opt-out mechanism), but the group submitted a request for proposals to help advertisers meet their guidelines and plans to announce its decision soon. Ad-Age reports that the group is close to selecting Better Advertising's "Power Eye" solution, which lets consumers mouse over an icon to see what they did to deserve a certain ad and opt out of receiving targeted ads. According to Peeler, these new ads, whoever provides them, will roll out by late summer.
Was it those airplane tickets to Costa Rica, your twice-daily coffee habit, your hyper-caffeinated web surfing style, or nothing in particular that caused a coffee ad to target you? This initiative won't tell you -- but it will tell you that advertisers know you love coffee, and let you force them to stop using that information to target you with ads, assuming that's what you want.
Of course, once you've also told an ad network that you're suspicious of targeted advertising, you've also identified yourself as the perfect recipient of identity theft prevention advertisements. (They wouldn't… would they?)
See Also:
- Apple iAd Platform's Entry Fee Reported to Be $1 Million (Updated)
- MySpace Traffic Drop Costs News Corp About $100 Million
- With FTC's Blessing, Google and Apple Poised to Dominate Mobile Advertising
- Apple's New Developer Agreement Unlevels the iAd Playing Field
- FTC To Review Allegations Apple's iAd is Anti-Competitive: Report
(Photo courtesy of Flickr/cliff1066
