FTC Proposes Online Behavioral Advertising Privacy Principles
December 27th, 2007 | by admin |I received an email from our attorneys this past week soliciting comments on the new FTC policy proposing increased visibility for consumers regarding behavioral advertising.
The FTC is proposing a whole host of things regarding consumer control, length of data retention, adherence to privacy policies, and use of sensitive data usage. Their key tenets are encapsulated in the bullets below - is this going to regulated by the FTC, or can we control ourselves?
- Every Web site where data is collected for behavioral advertising should provide a clear, consumer-friendly, and prominent statement that data is being collected to provide ads targeted to the consumer and give consumers the ability to choose whether or not to have their information collected for such purpose.
- Any company that collects or stores consumer data for behavioral advertising should provide reasonable security for that data and should retain data only as long as is necessary to fulfill a legitimate business or law enforcement need.
- Companies should obtain affirmative express consent from affected consumers before using data in a manner materially different from promises the company made when it collected the data.
- Companies should only collect sensitive data for behavioral advertising if they obtain affirmative express consent from the consumer to receive such advertising.
The biggest question I have is whether or not there are more effective methods of targeting that will surface as a result of this increased oversight.
Tags: advertising, behavioral targeting
