Google has entered the sometimes controversial arena of behaviour-based advertising. It has launched a system that will serve up ads to web users based on their previous online activities. The search giant is offering users the chance to see and edit their profiles and it will also offer them the choice to opt out of the service. But privacy campaigners are outraged by the move, with Privacy International calling for a parliamentary enquiry. Keen travellers The trial service launches on YouTube and Google from 11 March but advertisers will not be able to display advertisements until April. Initially a handful of advertisers will be invited to take part. The system uses a cookie – a small piece of text that lives inside a web browser – to track users as they visit different websites that show ads through its AdSense program. Users will be assigned to categories based on the content of the pages they visit. “If a user is a keen traveller and visits lots of travel sites, Google could show them more travel-related ads,” the search giant said in a statement. “We believe that ads are a valuable source of information that can connect people to products, services and ideas that interest them. By making ads more relevant and improving the connection between advertisers and our users, we can create more value,” it said. But Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, has his doubts. “Google might well hype their targeting system as a boon to pet owners, but the reality is that the service will track just about everything you do and everything you’re interested in, no matter how personal or sensitive. “Your health problems, sexuality, financial problems and erectile dysfunction will be open season for advertisers,” he said. “Yet again Google has developed and launched a major initiative without any consultation with its users. And yet again Google will walk into a privacy minefield,” he added. He called for a parliamentary inquiry about the search giant’s dominance in the market. Stephen Carter, minister for communications and technology, faced questions about whether Google was becoming too powerful during a parliamentary select committee meeting this week. In reply, he said: “We shouldn’t criticise a company for being successful. It is a young business which has launched a series of applications that are highly attractive to user and both advertisers and users have flocked to its platform,” he said. Opt out
Some privacy campaigners believe Google should have offered its advertising service on an opt-in rather than an opt-out basis. “The cookie doesn’t show up any personally identifiable information so that is why we think opt-out is the right way to go,” said a Google spokesman. But some information on YouTube users, given when they sign up for an account, “may be factored in”, said the spokesman. The system has received a thumbs-up from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. “We recently met with Google to discuss their interest-based advertising product. Transparency and choice are important elements when addressing any consumer concerns about privacy and the monitoring of browser activity,” it said in a statement. “In light of this, we are pleased that the preference manager feature allows users a high level of control over how their information is used and that the method by which users can choose to opt out is saved permanently.” The online advertising industry is keen to push behavioural ads and, at the beginning of March, the UK-based Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) published a code of practice that Google signed up to. For privacy campaigners the code did not go far enough because it did not recommend that users be allowed to opt in to such services rather than opt out. According to Forrester Research, 26% of European online advertisers used behaviour-based advertising during 2008. The IAB estimates that it could generate an income of £200m in the UK annually. UK internet service provider BT is about to launch its own form of behaviour-based advertising, based on a system designed by US firm Phorm. |
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Full article and photos: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7937201.stm
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In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over
The Online Publishers Assn. launches supersize ads in an attempt to reach surfers who ignore banners.
They’re bigger, they’re bolder, and soon they’ll be covering up large swaths of some of your favorite Web pages.
The Online Publishers Assn. on Tuesday released several new in-your-face advertising formats designed to be both more obtrusive and interactive.
Twenty-seven top Internet publishers — including the New York Times, CNN, CBS Interactive, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal — say they’ll try the supersize ads in an attempt to get the attention of Web surfers who have learned to ignore banners.
The websites, which collectively reach two-thirds of the U.S. Internet audience, must walk a fine line so they don’t bug visitors so much that they stop returning.
“Studies show we ignore banner ads,” said Jose Castillo, a new media consultant in Johnson City, Tenn. “Making them bigger and more intrusive won’t work. We will tune those out as well.”
The new formats represent an effort to boost an ad market that has grown dramatically in recent years but is suffering in the slumping economy.
Research firm EMarketer Inc. predicts that the Internet is the only advertising segment that will grow in 2009. But most of that growth will be in Web search, while spending on so-called display ads is expected to fall.
EMarketer said in November that U.S. online ad spending would reach $23.6 billion in 2008 and $25.7 billion this year, but senior analyst David Hallerman said those figures would be revised downward soon.
To some extent, the inherent nature of advertising is to annoy people enough so that they pay attention. “Advertising rarely doesn’t irritate,” Hallerman said.
But what Google Inc. and other search firms discovered is that people don’t mind ads as much when the marketing message is related to what they’re already doing online, such as searching for something.
J.D. Lasica, president of Socialmedia.biz, a consulting company in Pleasanton, Calif., said publishers needed to be innovative in more than just the size and shape of the ads.
“All of these news publications are in a tough spot because the print publications are dwindling away. So they have to figure out how to make money in the new medium,” he said. “I don’t think the answer is in-your-face ads.”
The publishers say they think the new formats will provide a canvas on which advertisers can be more creative. And they certainly don’t intend to turn off Web surfers.
“The visitor says whether they want to see the whole ad,” said Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Assn. “If the consumer wants to engage, it will open to double the page. Everything will be user-initiated.”
The three new types of ads are the “fixed panel,” which looks like part of the page but scrolls up and down as a user does; the “XXL box,” in which users can turn pages within the ad; and the “pushdown,” which opens to display a larger ad.
The formats could pump some life into the market, publishers and advertisers said.
“A large-scale intrusive format is absolutely necessary in today’s market,” said Adam Kleinberg, chief executive of Traction, a San Francisco ad agency. “With the economy and the move to digital, the marketers are demanding a return on investment in every campaign.”
Some Time Inc. sites, including People.com and CNNMoney.com, have already experimented with the ads and found them to be successful, said Fran Hauser, president of digital operations for the company’s style and entertainment group. People can respond to a poll, watch a video or play a game right inside some of the ads.
The participating publishers agreed to offer at least one of the formats by July 1. The Los Angeles Times isn’t a part of the group. But it, too, is experimenting with ads that grab attention by, for example, taking over parts of the computer screen and allowing visitors to watch movie trailers or look up showtimes inside the ad.
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Full article and photo: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-webads11-2009mar11,0,4856435.story
