demedia's blog

We have called on Congress, the FTC and the European Commission to regulate the use of neuromarketing--techniques embraced increasingly by the largest digital marketing and media companies and global brands.  No one should be permited to unleash messages designed to deliberately bypass a citizen/consumer conscious mind.  Now, one Microsoft consultant is calling for marketers to expand their use of such

Digital ad companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others tout their ability to "convert" an individual to engage in some action--buying a product, clicking a video, filling out a form, and other proactive responses.  Digital marketing companies want to generate more revenues by taking credit for how they have influenced your online behaviors--over the course of a day, week, month or even more.  So-called "conversion tracking"--which is really online surveillance--is used by many companies online. 

The Article 29 Working Party, the group of EU privacy regulators, has played an extraordinarily important role in proactively protecting the privacy of citizens and consumers.  We admire them because they are willing to ask the tough questions and offer meaningful remedies on behalf of the public--something our FTC also needs to do.  The FTC is lagging when it comes to saying what many of us know.  The IAB self-regulatory "can you see the tiny icon underneath the multimedia video" icon isn't designed to work.  

As we mentioned previously, large US consumer data mining companies, which now include the leading ad agencies and interactive marketers, are fearful of the EU's thoughtful and courageous approach to protecting citizen and consumer privacy.  These giants fear that the EU standard will influence US policymakers as they craft privacy safeguards (and help make what is still a largely feckless FTC at least minimally effective).   The companies are apoplectic over EU proposals that would protect our anonymity--which they see as a real form of Do-Not-Track that may a

This Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce is holding a hearing called "Internet Privacy: The Impact and Burden of EU Regulation."  We imagine leading digital data collection companies have persuaded Chairwoman Mary Bono Mack that the EU's admirable work on privacy threatens their interests.  We have already alerted

Viacom, the ANA, and leading food companies have unleashed a lobbying blitz at White House, Congress, & the FTC that threatens to kill-off proposed scientific-based guidelines to be used when marketing food and beverage products to kids and teens, inc.

As Facebook expands its marketing services for the largest global brands, and works to broaden digital ad revenues, it has been pitching to multinational advertisers that they should create campaigns based on a "social by design" concept.  The goal is to help marketers foster brand "communities" of fans and supporters who can promote the product or service to their friends, which h

Several weeks ago we sent to the FTC materials involving Facebook's new policy of having its Credits be the exclusive provider of virtual currency for social games, getting 30% cut of all sales.

The digital data collection arms race, embodied by the dramatic growth of ad exchanges (and the real-time auctioning off of consumers without their knowledge or consent), now has generated WPP's new Xaxis data targeting platform.   As Adweek reports, " Xaxis, a unit that will manage the "world’s largest" database of individuals’ profiles—including demographic, financial, purchase, geographic, and other information that’s been collected from peoples’ Web activities and physical transactions.

Eric Schmidt of Google, speaking this week at the Cannes Lions ad festival, incredibly claimed that "the web is self-policing."  Schmidt, who was named "Media Person" of the year at the global marketing event, used this phrase, it