DAA Blog

Microsoft’s decision to make Do Not Track (DNT) the default setting in its forthcoming version of Internet Explorer (IE10) upset advertisers and ad tech companies from the start, but the unrest seems to have spread now to the coders and publishers themselves.

Developers of the Apache Web server, one of the most popular servers in use today, have built a patch that ignores Microsoft’s DNT signal when consumers visit a page using IE10. Roy Fielding, the patch’s developer and a cofounder of Apache, believes that most sites will ignore Microsoft’s DNT signal, and Microsoft already know this. As a result, IE users will be surprised to learn that their browser may be purporting to block data collection, but may, in fact, not be doing so. “The decision to set DNT by default in IE10 has nothing to do with the user's privacy,” he wrote.

He’s correct in that assessment. Microsoft’s DNT implementation is not an effective privacy mechanism, and from where I sit, it’s clearly not a strategy that educates consumers or gives them choice. What Microsoft is doing is spreading a fear that any kind of data collection is inherently wrong. If no site honors IE10’s signal, then Microsoft isn’t really doing anything...

The scope of progress and accomplishments to date by the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program have been praised by the White House, Commerce Department, and the Federal Trade Commission.

And the DAA isn’t resting on its laurels: we continue to work across industry to expand our engagement with millions of consumers and the breadth of participation by companies in our program. We wanted to share some of the latest progress.

 
DAA Education Takes Off

In January the Digital Advertising Alliance launched a new educational Web site – YourAdChoices.com – to provide consumers with information about the Advertising Choice Icon and interest-based advertising generally. The site provides a variety of videos to help users better understand their choices to control this type of advertising.

In recent months, a broad range of Web publishers and online advertising companies have served hundreds of millions of online banners to engage consumers, build awareness of...

Today the DAA announced a new consumer education campaign. Building on past efforts by DAA stakeholder organizations, this effort provides clarity to what the DAA program offers consumers for the interest-based advertising they receive from companies participating in the DAA program.

The education campaign is the culmination of over a year’s work by the DAA and is a direct response to the FTC’s call for greater outreach and education to consumers about the choices available to them for interest-based advertising. The advertising creative was produced by MRM SLC, a McCann WorldGroup agency based in Salt Lake City. It speaks in an entertaining, informative voice that engages consumers and helps them to understand what the DAA Icon represents, how it appears, and importantly what it enables consumers to do.

The Website launch is accompanied by an ad banner campaign, also produced by MRM/McCann. Entitled, “Will The Right Ads Find You?”, the banners invite consumers to visit the education Website at YourAdChoices.com for additional information on the program.

•                    The New York Times reported on today’s launch. Read “For Online Privacy, Click Here."

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Today the DAA announced a major expansion to the framework of its Self-Regulatory Program. The DAA Self-Regulatory Principles for Multi-Site Data represent a significant effort by industry to collectively address uses of consumer data beyond OBA purposes.

Like the Self-Regulatory Principles for OBA that preceded them, these new principles are the outcome of many months of intensive, collaborative work by the DAA, it’s leadership and program participants – and a direct response to concerns expressed by the FTC and policy makers.

The new DAA Principles address several key issues. Among these, that:

•     Third Parties or Service Providers that collect Multi-Site Data for purposes other than OBA should provide consumers with transparency and control
•     Multi-Site Data should not be collected, used or transferred for the purpose of making an adverse determination of a consumer’s eligibility for employment, credit standing, health care treatment and/or insurance underwriting
•     Multi-Site Data that contains certain sensitive health or financial data about a specific individual, should not be collected without that individual’...

A recent survey by Carnegie Mellon University entitled, “Why Johnny Can’t Opt Out: A Usability Evaluation of Tools to Limit Online Behavioral Advertising,” identifies what the researchers view as inefficiencies in the current DAA Self-Regulatory Program.

This study, which cites a small sample size of only 45 participants, insufficiently describes the actual interactions of millions of consumers and their experience with the DAA’s Program by completely ignoring how the average consumer “discovers” their online choices with regard to online behavioral ads.

The DAA has revolutionized consumer education and choice by delivering a real-time, in-ad notice more than 10 billion times every day through the increasingly ubiquitous DAA Advertising Option Icon (also known as the “Ad Choices” Icon).  This in-ad notice allows consumers to easily click-through to the DAA Consumer Choice Web page (bypassing the DAA homepage entirely).  Once on the consumer choice page, the largest graphic element present on the page is a button that clearly states, “Choose all companies” that quickly and easily enables consumers control over their online advertising and at their discretion.

The DAA would like to submit the results of a much broader survey with real-world metrics; one that is occurring every single week in a broad, consumer environment:

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