Among the questions we will raise with policymakers is what any alliance between Google and Yahoo! will also mean for their respective mobile search advertising businesses. Privacy is certainly a concern here, as companies such as Google migrate the user tracking and targeting model which fuels the traditional PC-focused online ad business. Here’s what Yahoo! [...]

Eyeblaster is a rich media online advertising technology company which filed a S-1 with the SEC last March (for an initial public offering). Here’s the section on privacy: “Privacy concerns could lead to legislative and other limitations on our ability to collect usage data from Internet users, including limitations on our use of cookie or [...]

Yesterday, we were contacted by a reporter asking our position on the possible Google/Yahoo! search advertising deal (we are opposed to such an arrangement, on both competition and privacy grounds). When we read the story online, we learned that one of the groups sending a letter to the DoJ was the Black Leadership Forum. [...]

excerpt: “A behavioral targeting firm called Media6degrees said it’s engineered a workaround to the dual problems of data and relationship glut. Rather than look at a person’s friend list, the company uses a combination of cookies and ad server logs to pinpoint a person’s interests and generate anonymous profiles of her real friends… Media6degrees [...]

The Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) announced today that they intend to amend their 2006 complaint on interactive marketing techniques and threats to consumer privacy to include newly emerging mobile marketing practices. The announcement was made as part of the testimony given today by Jeff Chester, executive [...]

The mobile marketing ecosystem, as its called by the industry, poses significant consumer protection and privacy concerns. Next week, the FTC is holding a two-day town hall meeting on mobile marketing. The commission has invited me to participate on the mobile advertising and marketing panel. The public and many policymakers are entirely [...]

Granted, the IAB’s Washington, D.C. lobbying shop, opened last year, is a small operation. Now the IAB is in the process of hiring a second person for the office. No doubt IAB wants to protect the data collection and micro-targeting digital turf of its members. Former Tacoda and Time Warner exec. Dave Morgan [...]

Time Warner’s AOL, which now owns Bebo, will be focusing the site to better target the 13-24 year old demographic. Now part of the Platform A online ad system, Bebo will help support AOL’s European plans, enhancing its ability to “engage” youthful users. As reported by paidcontent.org, “Bebo’s engagement marketing will be [...]

We have long believed that the New York Times needs to explain to readers and users the range of digital marketing technologies and strategies it deploys. The Times (and its Times Digital) uses behavioral targeting and is currently working with Revenue Science. Revenue Science proudly proclaims that the “behaviors of more than 120 [...]

We know that many in the media reform community believe that they will be able to convince policymakers to create a more democratic electronic media system. But a more pragmatic approach is also required, one based on proactively responding to the array of mergers, acquisitions and venture investment shaping our new media reality. In [...]

The late preeminent communications scholar George Gerbner often explained that society needed to be concerned about who had the power to tell its stories. To set the values and the identity of the culture. Gerbner was especially concerned about television. Today, he would be focused on the emerging digital medium. That’s [...]

Last November, my CDD and USPIRG filed an amended complaint with the FTC asking it to crack down on behavioral targeting, including its role in the subprime mortgage lending crisis. We are glad Senator Dorgan and others raised concerns that the FTC is failing to do its job in this critical area. Online mortgage [...]

It’s always useful to examine the employment listings. Here’s one from Collective Media, which claims it offers “Targeting like no other. Our comprehensive targeting capabilities are unrivaled in the industry. Not only do we have the premiere technology for content, contextual and behavioral segmentation, we have the expertise to make the most of it…By [...]

The online advertising industry is throwing rocks at our notions of consumer protection in the digital age. Don’t they realize a serious public debate about all this is required before they engage willy-nilly in advanced targeted? Here’s an excerpt from WPP’s 24/7 April 28, 2008 release:”…announced that it is the first media network to deploy [...]

All these privacy, data collection and marketplace competition issues will need sorting out. Yahoo is acquiring “Tensa Kft., more commonly known as IndexTools…IndexTools will add more insight and metrics for online campaigns…” One search column explains the significance of the deal is the “…huge benefit that Yahoo will have is the ability to [...]

TV networks and ad agencies have long had a system in place to make sure programming doesn’t conflict with the interests of its key audience: advertisers. Network standard and practices departments reviewed entertainment programming to make sure a marketer–or the network–wouldn’t be embarrassed by the theme or content. We are beginning to [...]

Steve Rappaport, co-author of The Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from the Advertising Research Foundation, wrote the following comment to Randall Rothenberg’s Huffington Post piece. In our view, Mr. Rappaport’s analysis and measured tone is exactly how online ad industry leaders should respond to the growing debate on privacy and consumer [...]

As part of our public service to the FTC, esp. in light of its upcoming town hall, we submit some excerpts from io global. This company “provides the software and services to enable Network Operators, Media Brands and Advertisers to collaborate in a trading model to personalize and monetize their interactions with individuals on [...]

Just to place the privacy and online marketing debate in better perspective. It is appropriate and necessary for lawmakers and policymakers to examine and then address through rules the impact of new technologies on privacy. The Article 29 Working Party, the EU’s data protection review group, adopted as part of its 2008-2009 work plan [...]

excerpt: European Interactive Advertising Bureau bodies will convene next month to formulate a constitution. IABs based in European nations are expanding their operations, driven by a more mature, renewed and redefined central body: IAB Europe. “[Europe] has started to wake up now, finally,” said IAB Europe President Alain Heureux…IAB Europe plans to restructure and reorganize the [...]