The White House, Department of Commerce and
Federal Trade Commission each commended
the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) self-regulatory
privacy program for online, interest-based advertising. This event was one carefully orchestrated
part of a significant and
comprehensive Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights
the White House unveiled on the same day. This Bill of Rights is intended to provide consumers with greater
online privacy protection through voluntary codes of conduct, federal
legislation, and enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and state
Attorneys General.
Advertisers and agencies will likely
watch closely this DAA self-regulatory program that is a White House-commended
form of voluntary code of conduct provided for in the Consumer Privacy Bill of
Rights. Online advertisers in all
industries will need to review their policies and processes for compliance with
these DAA principles and programs as a forerunner of possible future regulatory
and court action.
While Internet companies clearly
seem to have gotten the message that they must regulate themselves or be
regulated, they are likely to be more than a little nervous that a large
percentage of consumers may opt-out, which could result in a significant
re-tooling of behavioral advertising revenue models. Notably, the self-regulation measures
generally do not impact first-party behavioral advertising (such as targeted
ads sent by Amazon to Amazon customers, or sponsored Google search results).
Digital
Advertising Alliance
The Digital Advertising Alliance is
a consortium of the nation’s largest media and marketing associations,
including American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of
National Advertisers, the National Advertising Federation, the Direct Marketing
Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the Network Advertising
Initiative.
The DAA has several programs for
guidance of advertisers for all types of businesses, including advertisers,
agencies, web publishing or non-profits that have a presence on the web.
Most recently, last January, the DAA
launched the “Your Ad choices” public education advertising campaign designed
to inform consumers about interest-based advertising and how they can take
greater control of their online privacy through the ad choices icon:
 |
The educational campaign includes banner advertising that directs consumers to the icon and also links to a new informational website. According to the DDA, “[w]henever you see the Icon, you’ll know two things: (1) You can find out when information about your online interests is being gathered or used to customize the Web ads you see, and (2) you can choose whether to continue seeing these types of ads.”
The
first program of the DAA was launched in 2009 for Online Behavioral Advertising
(OBA) by introducing seven self-regulatory
principles of OBA.
In
2011 the DAA expanded the scope of its self-regulatory program beyond OBA with
a self-regulatory guide for Multi-Site Data Principles” which established a
framework governing the collection of online data from a particular computer or
device regarding web viewing over time and across non-affiliated websites.
See
our previous analysis of
the DDA “Multi-site Data Principles.
The Multi-Site Data Principles codified existing industry practices
prohibiting the collection of multi-site data for the purpose of any adverse
determination, including employment, credit, health treatment or insurance
eligibility, as well as specific protections for sensitive data concerning
children, health and financial data.
Pointer to the Future of Compliance
Authors:
Paul C. Van Slyke Bart Huffman
