IAB-DMA-AAAA-ANA Behavioral Advertising Principles

Future of Privacy Forum Statement Regarding Industry Behavioral Advertising July 2 Agreement

 

The entire industry reaching agreement on the need to get more information to users beyond the limits of a privacy policy is a significant advance.  But to ensure that this will be a true step forward for consumers, companies will need to consider these rules a starting point and not a finish line and they need to ensure that the required notice is a meaningful communication clearly advising consumers that their web experience is being tailored for them. The credibility of this effort will be determined by whether this notice is only a barely visible disclaimer or whether it is really a good faith effort to educate users about a key feature.  We look forward to providing input based on the results of research we have underway and to working cooperatively to make this effort a success.

 

There are some issues we think need to be addressed by the trade groups or by the enforcement and monitoring groups that will be involved. These would include the following: Further expand the definitions of sensitive data to cover clickstream profiles based on searches for sexual terms or for sensitive diseases, ensure that activities like re-targeting are expressly included, establish specific data retention limits for web surfing profiles and include requirements to show users their profiles.  We will have a more detailed assessment of additional items needed in a report we provide on Thursday.

 

We also urge the browser companies to support the industry efforts by making advances on fixing the current unstable opt-out cookie process.

 

We have also participated in detailed discussions with TRUSTe about their plans for a behavioral advertising program and look forward to their efforts in this area.

 

Overall, this is a very significant step towards bringing data use out of the shadows.  Getting the entire set of actors in the advertising ecosystem pulling in the direction of more consumer control could be an important turning point towards improved privacy practices.