US DMA joins with ad bodies to cool behavioural targeting backlash

by Noelle McElhatton, Marketing Direct 14-Jan-09, 13:30

CHICAGO - The US Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has joined forces with America's leading ad and marketing associations to stave off legislation that would curb behavioural targeted advertising.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) have joined with the DMA to develop strict self-regulatory guidelines for online behavioural ad practitioners.

The purpose of the guidelines will be to protect the burgeoning behavioural targeting sector against a growing public backlash in the US.

The reputation of online behavioural targeting - the process of serving ads to users based on their search and web-surfing behaviour - took a battering in the US throughout 2008.

US Congress held hearings where the business practices of behavioural ad firms were tried for breaches of user privacy, while privacy advocates have heaped opprobrium on the sector.

"Behavioural marketing provides enormous benefits to consumers, but it is our responsibility as marketers to ensure [...] privacy interests remain protected," said the president/CEO of the ANA, Bob Liodice. "Strong and comprehensive self-regulation strikes a balance that both protects the public interest and allows marketers to provide relevant advertising, which is particularly critical during this period of economic downturn."

Comments

robin caller - 14/01/2009

I think there is a distinction that needs to be made between the DMA and IAB of the USA and the DMA and IAB of the UK. Here in the UK, there are umpteen serious professional publishing companies with published privacy policies who then sell advertising to behavioural technology companies thereby directly breaching their own policies and leaving their users susceptible to invasive profiling - and all for a campaign performance uplift that is fractionally better than the competitors who don't flout the government's "opt in" stance. The backlash is imminent over here and i don't think the USA bodies can do much to help with the more vehement and conservative European interpretations.