Even with the cookie-type behavioral advertising technology,
there was a way for users to prevent these ads from targeting
them. They could set their machines not to accept any cookies at
all by setting their browser security setting to high. This
solved the privacy issue, although many websites would
(intentionally or not) render improperly with this setting on.
In recent news on the behavioral advertising technology front,
Microsoft announced that its newest Internet Explorer, version
8, would have a mode called "InPrivate Blocking" that would
prevent cookies from being placed on any machine. At first
glance, it would seem that either: A. Microsoft is genuinely concerned about online privacy, to the
point that the company would allow users to block ads that come
from the Microsoft network as well, or B. Microsoft realized that the paltry share of the ad serving
market that it currently controls is not as important as
inflicting serious damage to Google, which owns a much more
significant slice of the online advertising pie (in actuality,
at this point, Google's "slice" looks more like Pac-Man, but
I digress). Whatever happens with this flavor of behavioral advertising,
there was recently a new type of advertising technology that
raised some serious eyebrows, and this one could have been the
most nefarious of all. This latest behavioral advertising technology, brought to the
surface by a company called NebuAd, is aimed at tracking user
behavior at the ISP level. In other words, there ain't really a
whole lot you can do about it. You need your ISP to get online,
so your ISP has access to the information that you are accessing
when you are online. They don't need no stinkin' cookies, so
you can erase them to your heart's content and they'll happily
keep tracking along. For the unscrupulous ISP, this is a no-brainer. You allow NebuAd
to install its platform at your service hub and then you split
the profits. And this is exactly what some of the smaller firms
did in several "trials" of the behavioral advertising
technology in the U.S.
Of course, there is a caveat - even a firm with cash flow
problems and without an iota of ethics would probably want to
create an opt-out system before unleashing this behavioral
advertising technology platform on its users (you know, the
people that already pay them and probably assume privacy).
However, there's something very interesting about how these
behavioral advertising trials were done - in just about every
case, the ISP seemed interested in keeping the opt-out
information as obscure as possible from its users. According to
Anick Jesdanun from the AP (1). 1. CenturyTel Inc. rolled out the platform to 20,000 of its
subscribers. To inform them of the new advertising technology,
the company sent an email letting these subscribers know only
that the privacy policy had been updated and had added a
paragraph about NebuAd to the privacy policy. 85 out of 20,000
opted out. 2. Embarq Corp. rolled out the platform to 26,000 of its paid
subscribers. Embarq didn't bother sending any emails to its
subscribers; the company merely put a general notice within its
privacy notice online. A whopping total of 15 out of the 26,000
people opted out.
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Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing,
which was named the number one organic search engine optimization
company (http://www.mediumblue.com/)in the world in 2006 and 2007
by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many
publications including The Complete Guide to Google Advertising
(Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For
Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews,
DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston
Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist
Medical Center. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO
guarantee (http://www.mediumblue.com/seo-guarantee.html) based
on your goals and your data.
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