James Rothwell | Regional Manager MSDR EMEA
There has been a lot of press lately on the latest type of Behavioural Targeting companies on both sides of the pond (specifically NebuAd & Phorm) and what this means for an individual web user’s privacy. Congress and other bodies are firmly placing the spotlight on these types of companies, because they operate closer to the source of a user’s entry into the world wide web i.e. they can see all web navigation and search history through deals with the ISP.
There are certainly legal issues at hand here around US federal wiretap laws but the suggestions that these companies could keep reams of data on every individual and somehow use this for anything but serving targeted ads seems far-fetched. As I understand it, the storage involved in having personally identifiable data that ties into personal web useage is unfathomable. The real issue at hand, as I see it, is whether the ISP’s are providing users the chance to opt in or out of this targeting. And according to a number of sources, this is where the companies are falling down.
Phorm ran a “behind the scenes” test 2 years ago with BT and Cable One in the US have got into hot water recently when it admitted it did not let users know about a test of 14,000 of their users with NebuAd. Yahoo’s recent announcement about allowing their users to opt out of their own tracking technology shows just how topical this subject is, and the way that targeted advertising seems to be going.
My personal opinion, undoubtedly informed by working in the online advertising industry, is that I would rather have targeted ads appearing next to the content I am consuming than be concerned about whether big brother is tracking my movements around the web. I am safe in the knowledge that I am not personally identifiable- I am just another number- but I am a number with data behind it that will hopefully show me something I want to see. I would far rather arrive at a site with behavioural targeting tags, and be offered something relevant than regress to the scatter-gun approach of the SPAM era. We have the technology to do this, so let’s use it. But let’s use it sensibly and give those who are sensitive to maintaining a level of privacy online, the facts and the choice.
Hi James - you missed a couple of points, perhaps. Or three…
(i) With Phorm at least, that ‘just a number’ is written into a cookie phorged to look as if it came from the website you just visited. For *every* website you visit, and its third party links, and so readable by that website and its third parties. It’s a tracker’s wet dream come true.
(ii) With dpi, the ad content you see may be relevant to you, but it may not be relevant at all to the website you are visiting. Browse plasma TVs and then go to a site to choose a new SUV, and Phorm and NebuAd will serve you ads for plasma TVs while you’re there. They are always a beat behind. Is that going to be annoying, do you think?
(iii) It isn’t just *you* that should have the opt-in/opt-out choice. It’s all the websites you visit, as well. Why should they work hard to craft interesting content, only to have it picked over by Phorm and NebuAd so they can serve you ads on *rival* sites, and thus deprive the first website owner of his/her proper due?
Phorm, certainly, has no good mechanism to deal with this - and in the UK, where our equivalent of your wiretap legislation is RIPA, this requires the consent of *both* parties, the person browsing and the website browsed, before Phorm can legally operate. Accordingly, it’s hard to see how Phorm can claim to be legal over here.
You missed another big stumbling block I put up a website test sone products and post my findings to help less knowledgable people make an informed decision..
I allow access but not for commercial gain.. What phorm would do would break my website copyright. As they would harvest my site for commercial gain..