Online behavioural ads – is the industry doing enough?

Transparency and choice is our mantra too. However, this really only tells half the story about industry’s goal to achieve this. The website – http://www.youronlinechoices.com – is being rolled out across all EU markets (so available in many different languages) to support a new ‘icon’ (similar to the recycling icon we all know) that the consumer will see in all display ads that use this technique. Clicking on the icon will provide the consumer with more information about data collection and how that person can manage or control his / her preferences. Which? itself supports this approach, as outlined in an article in May 2010. Industry will respond to the comments Which? has made on the website – many of which are happening as we make it pan-European. Each page on the site has a feedback button so we welcome all thoughts and comments to help us make the site as easily understandable and helpful as possible.

I agree with Alice, but its not just the effort – you have to be relatively well informed and web-savy to understand and then work through these issues which presumably a decent chunk of the population are not. For the average, not particularly engaged, consumer, visibility and simplicity is key. At the moment it takes knowledge and effort to make the choices and most people won’t have the time or inclination to do it. Tme for Which to drive this for the silent majority?

An interesting piece. Most consumers, I guess, have no idea that this sort of thing is going on. Cookies? Something to eat! Is there any merit in reviewing the Data Protection Act so that the definition of personal data is changed to give the consumer better protection?

Youronlinechoices is a small, timid step in roughly the right direction.

First of all, it tries to present itself as an independent source of consumer information, when in fact it’s funded by the advertisers and website owners. So the content is laughably one-sided in places. The guide to behavioural advertising dodges most of the major questions and debates. It tells me that it’s important for me to understand “why [behavioural advertising] is beneficial” – with no hint of a debate around how beneficial it is, who it benefits and who decides all this. No questions are raised, either, about the definition of personally identifiable information or the efficacy of the law.

Secondly, it’s not a triumph of straightforward presentation – I strongly suspect that people who make ads for a living could do a much better job if they really wanted to.

Thirdly, the opt-out mechanism itself is pretty clunky: it might stop working if you delete your cookies, and it doesn’t work for sites you don’t already have cookies from.

So it’s better than nothing, but the advertisers need to do an awful lot more, or they’ll only have themselves to blame when they face a backlash from consumers and regulators.

Tim G – the Data Protection Act (or rather than European Directive 95/46/EC) doesn’t need changing to cover online behavioural advertising – it’s already covered, despite what the industry says. Georgina’s example gets across very well why the profiles used to target OBA are personal data. The ICO make clear in their Personal Information Online code of practice:

“In the Information Commissioner’s view, personal data is being processed where information is collected and analysed with the intention of distinguishing one individual from another and to take a
particular action in respect of an individual. This can take place even if no obvious identifiers, such as names or addresses, are held.”

The industry argument tends to be something like this: We don’t create a profile of you. All we do is allocate your computer to a series of interest groups. So the picture would look something like this:

Picture 1

Group: SUV lovers
Members: #194440576; #224385009; #111564875; #182000972 etc.

Group: Sports enthusiasts
Members: #448012339; #111093049; #224385009; #989776142, etc.

Group: Prospective property buyers
Members: #309882399; #172883998; #097666121; #224385009, etc.

… and so on. But hang on – this isn’t the only way this information can be represented. In fact, this is just one way round. Computer #224385009 is actually in all the above groups. So we can just invert the picture and look at it like this:

Picture 2

Member: #224385009
Groups: SUV lovers; Sports enthusiasts; Prospective property buyers, etc.

And of course you can do this with all the other members too – they’ll all be in more than one group given enough web surfing time. The way OBA works is by saving to your unique cookie a series of further identifiers for the groups you’re a member of. The industry says: “All we’re doing is allocating you to a series of groups. We’re not looking at *you*; we’re just interested in the group.” But invert the picture and the consumer can say: “What you’re doing is allocating a series of groups to me. Of course you’re looking at me; that’s how you know what ads to serve to me.” It’s just two different ways of looking at exactly the same thing. The main industry argument that it isn’t personal data is just based on privileged one representation of the facts over another equally legitimate representation.

(Which leaves them with just the “But we don’t know your name!” argument.)

I don,t need dumb advertisements annoying me on my search pages i know what i want, they do nothing for me except chew up my gigs.There should be a way of opting out of the lot so we can work without ads flashing in our faces.I will never buy from an advertisements because the truth about there item is way less than what they say.Give me a break close them down.