Regulations on Behavioral Targeting Murky says IAB
Submitted by David on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 21:39.
Lawmakers continue to signal they intend to scrutinize behavioral targeting. "Behavioral targeting" simply means using a digital user's past online behavior on a site or across a network to determine which ads to deliver. Those behaviors might include seeing or clicking on ads or specific or categories of content. Cookies stored on local hard drives power behavioral targeting.
Today the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the main advocacy group representing digital advertisers launched a new public policy blog that will track the latest legislative developments on the state, federal and regulatory levels.
The IAB's first post links to a report examining the legality of Internet service provider-based behavioral targeting. The report discusses whether the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits ISPs from selling data about subscribers' Web activity without their consent. This became a hot button issue recently when NebuAd met opposition in Congress and from privacy advocates for doing deals with ISPs to deliver behavioral targeting.
Although the IAB paper equivocates with the conclusion that the law's applicability to behavioral targeting "remains muddled at best", it more definitively concludes that laws regulating the Web can't keep pace with technology. According to the IAB
"As the last ten years has shown, by the time a new law is passed that attempts to regulate some nuance of the technology industry, the law is often outdated before the ink dries (or more appropriately, before it's available online)," the paper states. And that is the problem with the current efforts to regulate behavioral targeting. Technology developments will invariably render even the most nuanced attempt at regulation obsolete long before the next Twitter becomes passe.
Today the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the main advocacy group representing digital advertisers launched a new public policy blog that will track the latest legislative developments on the state, federal and regulatory levels.
The IAB's first post links to a report examining the legality of Internet service provider-based behavioral targeting. The report discusses whether the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits ISPs from selling data about subscribers' Web activity without their consent. This became a hot button issue recently when NebuAd met opposition in Congress and from privacy advocates for doing deals with ISPs to deliver behavioral targeting.
Although the IAB paper equivocates with the conclusion that the law's applicability to behavioral targeting "remains muddled at best", it more definitively concludes that laws regulating the Web can't keep pace with technology. According to the IAB
"As the last ten years has shown, by the time a new law is passed that attempts to regulate some nuance of the technology industry, the law is often outdated before the ink dries (or more appropriately, before it's available online)," the paper states. And that is the problem with the current efforts to regulate behavioral targeting. Technology developments will invariably render even the most nuanced attempt at regulation obsolete long before the next Twitter becomes passe.
