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In these harsh times, staying afloat and keeping your privacy/security programs shipshape are not givens. So, the privacy professional needs to be even more part of the conversation about strategy. This is true because many of the new data-driven opportunities in the market are occurring inside a self-regulatory environment that is evolving.
The Federal Trade Commission recently released self-regulatory guidelines on online behavioral advertising. Here are some of the highlights of what the FTC said marketers should abide by:
• Transparency and Consumer Control: Every site that collects data for behavioral advertising should provide a clear, concise, consumer-friendly and prominent statement. This statement should inform consumers that data is being collected for use in providing them with advertising about products and services tailored to their interests, and that consumers have a choice about whether their information is collected for behavioral advertising. Lastly, the FTC encouraged marketers to develop alternative methods—not necessarily just Web site-based policy statements—for providing disclosure and choice.
• Reasonable Security and Limited Data Retention for Consumer Data: Any behavioral advertising data should be afforded reasonable security based on the sensitivity of the data, nature of a company’s business operations, the particular risks a company faces and reasonable available protections.
• Affirmative Express Consent for Material Changes to Existing Privacy Promises: The FTC states that affirmative express consent is required for material changes to existing privacy promises. What this means is a company must maintain its promises pertaining to consumer data even if the company later changes its policies. The affirmative express consent should be obtained from consumers before using previously collected data in a manner materially different from the promises made at the time of collection.
• Affirmative Express Consent to (or Prohibition Against) Using Sensitive Data for Behavioral Advertising: While the FTC expressed support for developing standards that define the term “sensitive data,” the agency did state that the principle of affirmative express consent be applied to any use of sensitive data for behavioral advertising. Alternately, the commission states such data be prohibited from behavioral advertising uses.
On the industry trade association side, the Direct Marketing Association, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers and Better Business Bureau are working jointly on additional and forthcoming self-regulatory standards. And the Network Advertising Initiative already has updated its privacy principles with more action to come this year.
I lay out this self-regulatory ecosystem because in the next 12 to 24 months there will continue to be shifts in how many of us and our partners do business. I hear marketers increasingly talk about leveraging data to become more of a media business. All of these folks want to position themselves differently from the commoditized masses and claim that their audiences are uniquely engageable by advertisers.
Many of these new “publishers” do not have any meaningful data about what kind of messages are relevant to their audiences. This data is seen as the next frontier in turning nondescript numbers about audience size into engageable, attractive markets. For example, if the 1.2 million folks on a gardening newsletter e-mail list have a high propensity to purchase skiing equipment, does it make sense for the newsletter, lead generation or other messaging program to carry skiing content or messages? I’d submit so.
All of this activity in the data space is right in the wheelhouse of privacy. We are virtually purpose-built to support new business goals by adapting tried and true privacy and security safeguards. Does that mean all proposals are going to pass privacy muster? I’d submit not.
But, the reality is that the new data-driven market shift will require us to respond with reasonable and sound privacy/security safeguards that take into account a self-regulatory landscape that must evolve as new channels and new business models continue to grow in the still-infant interactive age.
Lou Mastria, CIPP, is chief privacy officer and vice president of public affairs at NextAction Corp., a Westminster, Colo.-based provider of cooperative data solutions for multichannel retailers. He can be reached at (908) 363-0983, or by e-mail at lou.mastria@nextaction.net.
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