AT&T, Mobile Marketing and Privacy--with a Mobile Ad Location Targeting Update

Today, CDD sent a letter to the FTC and FCC asking these agencies to address both the privacy and consumer protection issues raised by the proposed AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile.  Mobile marketing requires a number of safeguards, including transparency, meaningful consumer privacy rules, and mechanisms for user control.  We will be offering insights into AT&T (and the rest of the mobile industry) as the merger is reviewed.   Here's an excerpt from Motricity's mini-case study on what it does for AT&T:  " the AT&T AppCenter provides a single destination for content, applications and services, giving mobile shoppers a faster, more personalized and visually dynamic shopping experience. It also gives AT&T and its content partners the ability to merchandise goods and services simply and easily to the subscriber."

Motricity just finalized its own acquisition--Adenyo, a predictive analytics (including for mobile marketing) company that also counted AT&T as a client.  Adenyo uses "proprietary technology and advanced methods to correlate, model and predict consumer behavior...[including] precision profiling and targeting of customers and prospects."  

PS:  Forbes reports that AT&T is soon to provide "tools that will enable developers to utilize local ads based on a user’s location...The ads will include both search (text) and display (image) ads and will be served through AT&T’s YP Mobile network...T&T says it is the largest local ad network overall thanks to its long history with YellowPages and its extensive local sales force, which numbers about 5,000 people across the country... the in-app local ads won’t be limited to AT&T cellphones or AT&T apps. AT&T already serves ads to some Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel phones via its YP Local Ad Network, due to partnerships with Microsoft’s Bing search engine..."