Many people don’t like the sound of behavioral targeting, perhaps because of a poor choice of words. However, Behaviorally targeted advertising is important, not just for the advertising companies that implement it but also for consumers! I will go on to say that advanced targeting solutions that are implemented responsibly are important for the entire Internet ecosphere. Google recognizes that and for that reason it recently decided to enter this space. Although understandably, Google chose to give the name “interest based targeting” to it’s behavioral targeting efforts.

Behavioral targeting is important because it helps generates relevant advertising which helps users discover content, products and services that’s relevant to them. At the same time relevant advertising helps businesses find a more relevant way of engaging and informing consumers.

Consumer dissatisfaction increases when they are served that are not at all relevant to their interests. For example, we have all seen the ads which ask you to punch a  monkey or a politician. Not to mention ads that are amazingly annoying due to the overwhelming reliance on flashing. Yes, it catches attention but it also annoys users.

Now there’s a right way and a wrong way for advertisers to implement behavioral targeting. The wrong way in my opinion is where a user’s privacy is not respected. Some companies (and I won’t name them here) partner with ISPs and snoop every page a user visits to gather behavioral targeting data.

The “right way” is somewhat subjective and would be defined by laws, regulations and best practices within a particular region that the behavioral targeting company operates in. What’s considered PII (personally identifiable information) also differs from region to region. For example, in UK, IP addresses are considered PII whereas in other countries they might not be considered PII.

To communicate good practices for online behavioral advertising (OBA)  companies operating in UK, IAB UK has developed a number of recommendations that are “based on three core Principles — notice, user choice and education– with the goal of building trust and understanding in OBA and enhancing users’ ability to control the use of information for these purposes.”

A summary of these guidelines for implementing good practice principles for online behavioral targeting and advertising include (read the  PDF linked below for  details):

Notice for Behavioral Targeting:

A behavioral targeting company should

• provide clear and unambiguous notice to users that  data is collected about them for the purposes of behavioral targeting. The notice should include information about what types of data are collected, how these data are being used and how users can decline behavioral targeting.
• require its contracted partners to provide clear and unambiguous notice that data are being collected and used by third parties for the purpose of serving behavioral targeting.
• make reasonable efforts to enforce the relevant provision of the contract, if it learns that a contracted partner is in breach of the notice requirement
• give, via its privacy policy, reasonable notice to users of any material change to its privacy policy with respect to its collection and use of data for the purposes of behavioral targeting, if it provides behavioral targeting on its own domain(s).

User Choice and Behavioral Targeting

A behavioral targeting company should

• provide an approved means for consumers to decline OBA with it.
• provide information on how to decline OBA with it and ensure that this information is prominently displayed and easily accessible on its website.
• provide the IAB with an up-to-date URL to this information so that the IAB can link to this information from its information portal.
• obtain consent to process data for the purposes of OBA where the processing of data requires such consent.

User Education and Behavioral Targeting

A behavioral targeting company should

• make information available to educate users about OBA and ensure that this information is easily accessible.  This may include information provided to users in easily understandable language and user friendly format (for example online video) about the collection and use of data and how to decline OBA.
• provide the IAB with an up-to-date URL with this information.
• also provide a link to the IAB’s information portal

Mechanisms for Opting Out of Behavioral Targeting

• Networking Advertising Initiative (NAI) Opt-out Tool and a IAB Member’s own opt-out tool where that IAB Member is also a signatory to the NAI,
• Webwise
• NebuAd
• Clear and easily understandable information in a Member’s privacy policy about how to control and delete cookies

In addition to the recommendations above, IAB also recommends that no behavioral targeting company should create OBA segments intended for the sole purpose of targeting children under the age of 13 years.

What’s missing in the recommendations is specifics about various guidelines regarding PII. For example, should behavioral targeting companies store the URLs? What about the user names that might appear in the URLs? What about policies regarding how long IP addresses can be kept? In addition, what about encryption guidelines etc? For now, IAB has left those decisions to its members which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What do you think?

The full text of the Good Practice Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising is available on IAB site.

Tags: behavioral targeting, IAB

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