Perhaps the hottest topic in the interactive marketing industry over the last several months is online privacy. A few fairly major developments that have occurred were led by our industry’s foremost trade organizations, and the news media has spent a hefty portion of time and resources covering best (and some say worst) practices relating to data collection, targeting, privacy protection and self-regulation. I wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight about what Epic Media Group stands for, believes in, and aims to practice in the coming months and years.
The first thing to know is that we take online privacy very seriously. Anyone in the business of serving targeted ads to users must put personal privacy issues at the forefront. Moreover, we are all consumers and most of us spend increasing amounts of time using the internet. As a consumer, I know I certainly don’t want to have my privacy put in jeopardy or have certain types of data used nefariously, and I wouldn’t put others in that position either.
Our major governing trade bodies including the IAB, NAI, DMA recently announced a sweeping self-regulatory program aimed at providing consumers greater education and control over the collection and use of non-personally identifiable data for online behavioral targeting purposes. Our company supports this effort because we believe it is important for consumers to have transparency about what data is being collected, when and how it is used. Nowadays, while most consumers understand that there is a lot of information on the internet that can be collected, programs like this provide important transparency. Further, we do not believe that government intervention or regulation is necessary as this would stifle burgeoning interactive businesses and creativity and reduce ad-subsidized free content on the Web, which would lead to unfortunate outcomes such as higher unemployment and stagnant economic growth.
The bottom line is that we as an industry are fully capable of marketing responsibly and transparently to consumers. In most cases this is exactly what occurs, though this behavior doesn’t make big headlines so it’s generally not the angle covered in the news.
The issue of online privacy is complex and may be confusing when analyzing exactly how information is collected, transmitted and used. Use of terms such as apps (applications), IP addresses, user IDs, and “PII” are foreign to many consumers, but we believe they shouldn’t be. We believe clarity, transparency, and education of end users is in everyone’s best interest. We think the “what, when and how” are extremely important to consumers – in other words, “what” is being collected about them, “when” it is being collected, and “how” it is being collected. Though well-meaning, articles that concentrate only on problems rather than explaining standard, carefully deployed industry practices act as a scare tactic rather than facilitating a constructive conversation that people can understand.
It is helpful to break down the issues. As consumers, you are all familiar with advertisers. You come into contact with hundreds of companies every day trying to sell you products or services through commercials, billboards, subway ads, etc. How many of them are directly relevant to your lifestyle and interests? Very few, right? This is because in most offline advertising there is no way to direct the most relevant and customized ads to an individual consumer. Most aim to cast a wide net over the most people possible hoping to find the right audience for their products and services.
There is where online marketing can be different and specialized. We have the tools necessary to understand people’s interests and purchase intent by anonymously recording interaction with an advertisement or website, the click of a mouse, or an e-commerce purchase, etc. Internet users, by and large, expect to see ads as they consume free content, and generally prefer customized ads that match their interests and lifestyles. Would a 25 year old single male prefer to receive untargeted ads about diapers, or targeted ads for outdoor clothing based on their history of visiting hiking websites? Advertising companies seek anonymous data to serve ads that are relevant, and this must be balanced against the concern that personalized data might fall into the wrong hands creating a “creepy” factor – like where “big brother” knows too much about them.
The crux of the issues covered lately in the media point to the important question: “How much data should the advertising community have about me, and what types of data are acceptable?” On the one hand there are plenty of scary stories about privacy issues, and on the other articles about the importance of customized and effective advertising to support the incredible value of free internet content.
It is abundantly clear that our entire industry has a ways to go in educating the media and general public about the core issues of what, when and how information is collected. This responsibility falls to companies and market leaders in the interactive industry. I think we all agree that online advertisers and their partners need to be responsible about disclosing how data is collected and what it is used for. As long as consumers are properly educated and are given appropriate controls, then the industry will progress on its’ own and some of the ill-conceived articles will dissipate.
And here’s an important point: self-regulating organizations in the industry really do want consumers to be comfortable. That work is being completed by industry groups such as the NAI and IAB, but it also must come from nearly all of the companies in our space that want to grow by serving consumers who enjoy the benefits of the internet. We all have self-interest, as well as human interest, in establishing appropriate norms to alleviate privacy concerns. We want consumers to have more control in the process. The internet itself, as well as the technology on which it is built, affords consumers such control, the key is in educating people what those controls are.
The movement made by our leading trade organizations serves to illuminate these controls, and the advertising community and membership companies are supportive of it too. Look no further than here to learn more about behavioral advertising, cookies, and browser controls: http://www.aboutads.info/consumers.
We require our advertising and website partners to clearly indicate what data is collected and how it is used. As a member of the NAI and IAB, we offer consumers the ability to opt-out from receiving customized ads. We also look forward to supporting our advertising clients and helping the industry evolve by providing consumers with the tools they need to manage their own privacy concerns in the months and years ahead, and continuing to play an active role in the growth of our industry.
Art Shaw, CEO, Epic Media Group
But with this announcement, our broadened “marketplace” and positioning on those landscape charts is more pervasive and, we believe, changes the game a little bit.
