IAB Readying Next Phase Of Privacy Self-Regulation: Compliance
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is expected to roll out the next phase of its self-regulatory privacy initiative on Monday, when it will launch a program to certify that online companies are in compliance with self-regulatory guidelines, Online Media Daily has learned.
The IAB, along with the other trade groups participating in the self-regulatory initiative, also is expected to announce that the National Advertising Review Council has tapped the start-up Better Advertising to help monitor compliance with privacy principles. Those principles — which grew out of a task force of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Council of Better Business Bureaus — generally require companies to notify consumers about targeting, and in many cases, allow them to opt out; in some situations, the principles call for opt-in consent.
In addition, the “power i” icon, consisting of a lowercase ‘i’ inside an open circle — which was supposed to indicate when online ads were being served based on users’ Web activity — appears likely to get a makeover. Industry insiders say that some ad organizations were concerned that the symbol was too similar to other logos to be licensed. The slightly renovated version is likely to consist of an ‘i’ inside a triangle pointing toward the right, like a ‘play’ button.
Read More: MediaPost
Is Mobile Advertising Ready for an Exchage?
Microsoft, after a long hiatus in advertising-related announcements, unveiled two new salvos in its bid for a major role in mobile advertising: a Mobile Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 and a Microsoft Advertising Exchange, claimed to be the first such platform to support real-time bidding (RTB). (See details on this Microsoft blog.)
On the principle that three data points close together define a trend, here are two more:
- DataXu, a leading demand-side platform (DSP) for RTB announced last week the “industry’s first” DSP advertising solution for mobile, GroupM’s B3 (using DataXu’s decisioning technology);
- Ericsson announced that, on September 22, it will announce AdMarket, a “an open marketplace for targeted mobile advertising through which Ericsson acts as a neutral broker” (in other words, an ad exchange) – see video here.
This is all good news for the mobile advertising market, which still trails online by about $60 billion worldwide. It shows that many of the technologies and concepts innovated for the Internet can help accelerate the mobile market and potentially avoid some of the pitfalls of fragmentation and inefficiency that have at times impeded the development of web advertising (at least on the display side).
The problem, of course, is that for an exchange to work – that is, to attract a critical mass of buyers and sellers and generate enough fees to cover infrastructure and operations – there needs to be sufficient liquidity to start with. This also goes for the highly-touted targeting capabilities of mobile: they’re only valuable if the resulting segments are large enough to interest advertisers, and we still appear to be short of audience.
Read More: Blogs.Gartner.com
Ten Fallacies About Web Privacy
Privacy on the Web is a constant issue for public discussion—and Congress is always considering more regulations on the use of information about people’s habits, interests or preferences on the Internet. Unfortunately, these discussions lead to many misconceptions. Here are 10 of the most important:
1) Privacy is free. Many privacy advocates believe it is a free lunch—that is, consumers can obtain more privacy without giving up anything. Not so. There is a strong trade-off between privacy and information: The more privacy consumers have, the less information is available for use in the economy. Since information helps markets work better, the cost of privacy is less efficient markets.
2) If there are costs of privacy, they are borne by companies. Many who do admit that privacy regulations restricting the use of information about consumers have costs believe they are born entirely by firms. Yet consumers get tremendous benefits from the use of information.
Think of all the free stuff on the Web: newspapers, search engines, stock prices, sports scores, maps and much more. Google alone lists more than 50 free services—all ultimately funded by targeted advertising based on the use of information. If revenues from advertising are reduced or if costs increase, then fewer such services will be provided.
3) If consumers have less control over information, then firms must gain and consumers must lose. When firms have better information, they can target advertising better to consumers—who thereby get better and more useful information more quickly. Likewise, when information is used for other purposes—for example, in credit rating—then the cost of credit for all consumers will decrease.
4) Information use is “all or nothing.” Many say that firms such as Google will continue to provide services even if their use of information is curtailed. This is sometimes true, but the services will be lower-quality and less valuable to consumers as information use is more restricted.
For example, search engines can better target searches if they know what searchers are looking for. (Google’s “Did you mean . . .” to correct typos is a familiar example.) Keeping a past history of searches provides exactly this information. Shorter retained search histories mean less effective targeting.
5) If consumers have less privacy, then someone will know things about them that they may want to keep secret. Most information is used anonymously. To the extent that things are “known” about consumers, they are known by computers. This notion is counterintuitive; we are not used to the concept that something can be known and at the same time no person knows it. But this is true of much online information.
6) Information can be used for price discrimination (differential pricing), which will harm consumers. For example, it might be possible to use a history of past purchases to tell which consumers might place a higher value on a particular good. The welfare implications of discriminatory pricing in general are ambiguous. But if price discrimination makes it possible for firms to provide goods and services that would otherwise not be available (which is common for virtual goods and services such as software, including cell phone apps) then consumers unambiguously benefit.
7) If consumers knew how information about them was being used, they would be irate. When something (such as tainted food) actually harms consumers, they learn about the sources of the harm. But in spite of warnings by privacy advocates, consumers don’t bother to learn about information use on the Web precisely because there is no harm from the way it is used.
8 ) Increasing privacy leads to greater safety and less risk. The opposite is true. Firms can use information to verify identity and reduce Internet crime and identity theft. Think of being called by a credit-card provider and asked a series of questions when using your card in an unfamiliar location, such as on a vacation. If this information is not available, then less verification can occur and risk may actually increase.
9) Restricting the use of information (such as by mandating consumer “opt-in”) will benefit consumers. In fact, since the use of information is generally benign and valuable, policies that lead to less information being used are generally harmful.
10) Targeted advertising leads people to buy stuff they don’t want or need. This belief is inconsistent with the basis of a market economy. A market economy exists because buyers and sellers both benefit from voluntary transactions. If this were not true, then a planned economy would be more efficient—and we have all seen how that works.
Read More: WSJ.com (Entire Article Here)
Facebook Ad Network – Is It Coming?
On August 27, Mashable reported Facebook has a $33.7 billion valuation – wow. Too high? Maybe to some, and maybe not to others. Instead of debating that point, let’s look at some things that Facebook might do in the future to a) serve advertisements and b) make more money.
Facebook has some pretty amazing things going for it. It’s becoming ubiquitous in terms of its appeal, so all walks of life are flocking to it. Second, people spend tons of time on Facebook and visit it on their computers and phones every day – if not more. Third, with its massive loyal user base, no matter what your niche audience looks like chances are you can effectively target them and reach them in large numbers on Facebook. Finally, user growth is still expanding and has a long way to go before peaking.
What does this mean for online marketers and media buyers? Well, consider these two factors: unprecedented targeting to a massive audience and the possibility of a new ad network layered over the social graph already installed on millions of sites. (You know all those Like and Share buttons, Facebook Connect, and fan widgets?) In many ways, these sites are already connected to Facebook on code/technical levels.
Let’s explore these two things with the disclaimer that a lot of what I outline here is based on predictions on what Facebook could do – not necessarily on what it will do.
Read More: ClickZ
Rocket Fuel To Launch Platform Connecting Online Clicks To Offline Sales
Marketers that are eager to reach the perfect consumer track campaign budgets carefully, but ultimately want to have the ability to connect online and offline activity. Rocket Fuel is working on technology that will allow marketers to attribute online clicks to offline sales, Richard Frankel, Rocket Fuel president, tells MediaPost. Advertisers offer a variety of ways to approach the problem of attributing clicks, research or ad views to the sale of an item. Some have tied codes on printable or mobile coupons to the in-store sale. Frankel points to another approach: find a source that has sales data and build a bridge from that data to clicks on display ads the company supports. “It mostly deals with cookies and IP data,” Frankel says. “There are a few companies that have this type of data, but they haven’t figured out how to work with companies like ours to make it actionable.” That’s one problem that Rocket Fuel needs to tackle to make it work. Another is making it easy for advertisers to use the tools. And that’s not a simple task, Frankel says, because many companies that own the data don’t know how to support data projects on the Web. The road map should put the tools in the hands of advertisers and marketers some time by June. Theoretically, the tools also could help advertisers understand that different types of media campaigns have real sales impact.
Read More: MediaPost
Watch Video From the AppNexus Summit
The AppNexus Summit focused on the evolution of ad networks and aggregators in the new world of real-time advertising. We moved beyond the hype and brought together a diverse group of speakers to share ideas and perspectives on what’s really working in online advertising. It was a fantastic day, and here are some highlights:
- A keynote fireside chat with Aaron Easterly, General Manager of Network Strategy & Monetization at Microsoft, Johnathan Hsu, CEO of 24/7 Real Media, and Brian O’Kelley, CEO of AppNexus.
- A panel discussion on the business challenges facing ad networks with executives from AOL Advertising.com, interCLICK, Traffic Marketplace, XTEND, AudienceScience, TidalTV. Watch the video: What Works for Ad Networks: Business Challenges
- We examined the technology issues and innovations in our industry with leaders from Chitika, Dapper, Rocket Fuel, Peer39 and eXelate. Watch the video: What Works for Ad Networks: Technology Challenges
- John Ebbert from AdExchanger.com led a conversation on ad exhanges and inventory aggregators with perspectives from Pubmatic, AdMeld, The Rubicon Project, OpenX and Time Inc. Digital. Watch the video: The Role of Ad Exchanges, Publishers & Inventory Aggregators.
Read More: AppNexus.com
Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead Archive, scheduled to open soon at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethnomusicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians. But the biggest beneficiaries may prove to be business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created “customer value,” promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning.
Read More: TheAtlantic.com
