Is Behavioral Advertising Creepy?

Posted on by Tim Parry

Advertising Option IconI’ve moaned in the past about
the creepiness about online behavioral advertising. It seems if I am doing some sort of
MCM Awards research, and go to a merchant’s Website, its banner ad will follow me wherever I go until I remove the cookie. Even funnier, when I’m in our Connecticut office and hooked up to our server in Kansas, the
Kansas City Royals want me to buy tickets. I’m not going to travel 1,000 miles to watch a ballgame, even though I’m a ballpark aficionado, unless I’m heading to our home office and
someone’s taking me out for some serious BBQ before and afterward.

Last July, the DMA and a few other agencies issued the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, and they started marketing it heavily this month. The bottom line is the groups involved want to relieve some of the consumer paranoia that surrounds the potential creep-out factor involved. They want the consumer to know marketers aren’t stealing personal data out of their computers, and they want to remind marketers that they can place a cookie on a consumers’ computer, but better not be doing anything shady.

Companies participating in the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising program may register to use its advertising option icon (see above) as a means for providing enhanced notice of online behavioral advertising practices.

Ian MacDonald, vice president and general manager of party supply merchant Century Novelty, agrees that self regulation is needed. I told Ian that during MCM Awards time, Century Novelty follows me around the Internet.

MacDonald is also glad to know that. It means that I’ve showed an interest in Century Novelty. And that’s why the cookie had been placed on my computer – so I’ll be reminded that I was looking for something at Century Novelty, and I may want to go back and make a purchase.

He also understands the freak-out factor, and says it’s just a fraction of marketers (ones he doesn’t consider legitimate) who fuel the consumer paranoia. But will the consumer care about the advertising option logo?

“Consumers may not care about the logo because most of these legitimate companies abide by the group’s guidelines anyway,” MacDonald says. “They don

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