online behavioral advertising

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The Better Business Bureau (“BBB”) and the Direct Marketing Association (“DMA”) are in charge of enforcing the ad industry’s Self Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (“OBA Principles”), which regulate the online behavioral advertising activities of both advertisers and publishers (that is, web sites on which behaviorally-targeted ads are displayed or from which user data is collected and used to target ads elsewhere). Among other things, the OBA Principles provide consumers transparency about the collection and use of their Internet usage data for behavioral advertising purposes. Specifically, the “Transparency Principle” requires links to informational disclosures on both: (i) online behaviorally-targeted advertisements themselves, and (ii) webpages that display behaviorally-targeted ads or that collect data for use by non-affiliated third parties for behavioral advertising purposes. The “Consumer Control Principle” requires that consumers be given a means to opt-out of behavioral advertising.

Through its “Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program”, the BBB recently enforced the OBA Principles in a series of actions—some with implications for publishers and some with implications for advertisers.

On February 12, 2009, the FTC issued its long-anticipated Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. The revised Self-Regulatory Principles are the result of a year of study of the more than 60 comments provided by industry, advocacy organizations, academics, and individual consumers in response to the FTC’s proposed self-regulatory principles issued in late 2007.
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FTC staff issued a statement today proposing four “self-regulatory” principles to guide businesses engaged in online behavioral advertising. FTC staff also seeks public comments on these principles as well as additional information on what other uses businesses are making of online tracking data. Interested parties can submit comments by February 22, 2008.

The statement, titled “Online Behavioral Advertising: Moving the Discussion Forward to Possible Self-Regulatory Principles” follows from the FTC’s town hall meeting held in early November 2007. There, FTC considered privacy issues raised by behavioral advertising and heard from consumer interest groups and businesses’ alike.