Addressing the privacy issues related to advertising technology and online tracking has been a key focus since FPF’s founding. Increasingly, the mobile advertising space, geo-location tracking, and indoor positioning technologies are at the forefront of online data management, retail, and new consumer offerings. Thus, it is not surprising that regulators, industry leaders, and advocates are taking a hard look at questions about how to appropriately collect and handle consumer data for advertising, location-based targeting, and audience measurement. Additionally, as public awareness of targeted and personalized advertising grows, organizations are pushed to deliver more helpful, relevant ads by less intrusive means. FPF curates a gallery of leading practices, provides up-to-date analysis of emerging and evolving technologies, convenes stakeholders in a monthly working group call, and works with policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders to support leading privacy practices for the use of location data.
The Unruly Advertising Ecosystem
Kudos to Harvard Asst professor Ben Edelman, for his latest expose of the underbelly of the online advertising environment. Edelman, an FPF Advisory Board member, has been a long time critic of ad networks or advertisers that don’t do enough to control where their ads are placed. At www.Benedelman.org, he has documented ads showing up […]
Future of Privacy Forum Letter to the Editor of the NYTimes: "Tracking Consumers Online: Make It Transparent"
The following piece was published on the New York Times website on October 8, 2009 Tracking Consumers Online: Make It Transparent To the Editor: Re “Tracked for Ads? Many Americans Say No Thanks” (Business Day, Sept. 30): As your article suggests, there’s little doubt that consumers will object to behavioral advertising when they feel it […]
A deeper dive into behavioral advertising in Europe
As mentioned in a previous blog post, we had the pleasure of speaking with nugg.ad CEO Stephan Noller last week. Nugg.ad is the German company that has just been awarded the EuroPrise Privacy Seal. nugg.ad’s new behavioral targeting system, Predictive Targeting Networking (PTN) 2.0, received the seal favored by many EU regulators after a vetting […]
October 6 Future of Privacy Forum Teleconference
Talk of the town in privacy land this week was the survey/study released by our Advisory Board colleague Chris Hoofnagle, together with Joseph Turow and others at their institutions. New York Times coverage MediaPost The report shows that Americans have very strong feelings about tailored advertising and takes issue with the policy arguments business make […]
Turow Berkeley Study: Consumers have a Bad Attitude about Behavioral Ads
Prof Turow’s study of consumer attitudes toward behavioral advertising reported in the NY Times today is a severe indictment of the current state of behavioral advertising. Consumers just do not like the feeling of being tracked. What can companies do about it? How about take Turow’s advice! Despite the significant concerns captured by the poll, […]
No Flash in the Pan
The use of flash cookies and its impact on privacy has been getting a lot more publicity recently. Earlier this month, Michael Kassner had a good piece on TechRepublic. Now Darren Chin has an interesting take on Eosensa. We have our view on the privacy implications of flash cookies – as well as what pretty […]
Flash Cookie Confession?
I was pretty stunned to read this piece posted on MediaPost today. It usually takes a subpoena to obtain documents with comments like this: “When Tatto began to develop its core behavioral frameworks and algorithms, it believed Flash cookies would remain the best way to slow the ability of consumers to delete cookies from their […]
Behavioral Advertising in Europe
Some news just in from our friend Kirsten Bock of the data protection agency of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. Schleswig-Holstein manages the EuroPriSe privacy seal, a privacy certification backed by many European data authorities. This week, the EuroPriSe seal was awarded to nugg.ad, a behavioral advertising company active throughout Europe. For our readers who, like us, […]
Facebook Addresses Canada's Privacy Commissioner Concerns
Several weeks ago the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, issued a comprehensive report about Facebook’s privacy policies and asked the company to address several privacy concerns they laid out or face imminent legal action. In response, Facebook announced today a series of changes that intended to address the concerns offered by the Commissioner. […]
FOSI:"Wednesdays with Winston"
“Brown Bag” lunchtime program where we will learn what’s happening with online safety at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and what these developments may mean for your business. Attendees will hear from a panel of industry experts on updates from COPPA, behavioral advertising and other issues affecting online safety and privacy followed by an interactive […]