Self-Regulation Program on Tracking Works Toward Simplicity, Marketing Effort Under FTC Prodding
SAN FRANCISCO -- A broad self-regulatory effort concerning online marketing intends to simplify its program for consumers and to undertake a “big national campaign” to inform them about it, in response to supportive prodding from the top of the FTC, the coordinating lawyer told us. Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Jessica Rich, the Division of Privacy & Identity Protection’s assistant director, are “both positive” on the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising and a new extension, Stu Ingis of the Venable law firm said after a presentation late Tuesday at a Practising Law Institute seminar where he handicapped the chances of a federal law on the subject as “quite low.”
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The alliance expects to announce late this year or early next a media effort “like the types of campaigns you see for major products,” Ingis said. He wouldn’t elaborate on the cost or other details. Ingis said he expects an FTC report on digital tracking and behavioral advertising due out this year to discuss the efforts. The program is “being redesigned to be even more user-friendly,” he said in the seminar. The FTC didn’t immediately comment. The alliance is made up of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, American Advertising Federation, Association of National Advertisers, Direct Marketing Association, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Network Advertising Initiative. The IAB is the go-between in work to extend use of the symbol into Canada “so we can have a uniform icon,” Ingis said.
The Advertising Option Icon program, symbolized by a small “i” in a triangle and offering Web surfers online-tracking efforts and customized-ad opt-outs, has grown fast this year, Ingis said. “We're seeing” the icons “everywhere,” he said, to the point that regulators have stopped saying they aren’t in use. About 400 large companies have registered to use the icon, and almost 90 bodies have joined an enforcement program that took its first actions last week, Ingis said. The effort’s www.aboutads.info had almost 100,000 visits last week, about 80 percent from clicks on the icon on Web ads, and 20 percent of the visitors “exercised choice” over the use of information about their activity, he said. “We've got real numbers. We've got real use by consumers.” Ingis told us no research has been done on consumer recognition of the icon or comprehension of the information it leads to.
The icon will come to give consumers confidence about their privacy online, Ingis said in the seminar, and “if we maybe stop the fear-mongering by the U.S. government, that will help the discussion as well.” He said he doesn’t like the term “do not track,” because of unfavorable connotations.
At the FTC’s urging, the program was extended last week beyond behavioral advertising into the collection of information about surfers’ activity over time across websites not affiliated with one another, and sharing of the data for decisions about employment, credit, insurance and medical care. It was “inaccurate and I believe irresponsible” of FTC officials to suggest that rules of this kind are needed to prevent consumers from being denied insurance because of evidence that they had bought frying pans, Ingis said. The new program hasn’t started, he said. “It takes time to implement these. It’s a complex ecosystem, and there are implementation challenges to doing this.” A uniform, easily understood standard should be set with the participation of organizations involved in policy work, instead of technology bodies’ creating their own, Ingis said.