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The think tank Future of Privacy Forum announced this week that it tapped ad agency WPP to come up with new ways of notifying Web users about online behavioral advertising. Director Jules Polonetsky hopes that advertising creatives will be able to come up with something more intelligible than the lengthy jargon-filled policies that are all too often incomprehensible. Federal Trade Commission Chair Jon Leibowitz, who has urged Web companies to provide clear and succinct notice about ad targeting, is cheering the project. "I'm very heartened with what the Future of Privacy Forum has announced," he tells MediaPost. "Most current online privacy policies are essentially incomprehensible for even the savviest online users."

Are you an advertiser looking to target mothers online with children under 12 who are concerned about obesity to promote a healthy snack food? Or people that don't support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but support offshore drilling generally? If so, Resonate Networks -- a new ad network geared to nonprofit, political and corporate advertisers -- promises to serve up just the right audience based on highly targeted, if anonymous, profile data focused on political views and attitudes. "It's really drilling down to people's beliefs and where they stand on issues," said Bryan Gernert, CEO of Alexandria, Va.-based Resonate, a non-partisan company launched by former Republican and Democratic political strategists including Harold Ickes, Bill Clinton's former deputy chief of staff and one of Resonate's investors. Unlike traditional ad networks that target advertising based on a site content or audience demographics, Resonate combines survey information, online and offline databases and proprietary algorithms to match Web users' political leanings and levels of activism with sites they tend to visit most often. "You can identify Web sites that have a preponderance of people who support certain issues," that go beyond obvious issue-oriented or political sites, said Gernert. He added that Resonate is already working with 500 of about 2,500 sites that correlate strongly with particular issues or audiences with high levels of engagement or influence.

"The Network Advertising Initiative will unveil a new tool on Thursday that allows people who want to avoid behavioral targeting to permanently preserve their opt-out cookies. Currently, Web users who don't want to receive targeted ads can opt out via cookies. But those cookies have notoriously short lives -- often because users who want to avoid tracking frequently delete all of their cookies, including the opt-out cookies. Once the opt-out cookies disappear, behavioral targeting companies revert to tracking users and serving them targeted ads. "

"For more than a decade, Web companies have said that behavioral targeting, or tracking people anonymously as they navigate around the Internet and then serving them targeted ads, doesn't harm users. On the contrary, they argue, such targeting benefits people by providing them with more relevant messages, and also lets marketers spend their ad dollars more efficiently. When privacy advocates complain about behavioral targeting techniques, industry executives tend to respond by condemning the critics as ivory-tower elitists. But new research is increasingly casting doubt on the idea that the average consumer doesn't care about behavioral targeting. "

"All Facebook users can deactivate their profiles, but doing so quietly might not make quite the same statement as using another service to slam the door on the site. One such service, Seppukoo.com, created by the Italian group Les Liens Invisibles, drew attention late last year after launching a campaign to convince people to commit Facebook suicide. Wannabe ex-Facebook members can provide Seppukoo.com with their names and passwords and Seppukoo then not only deactivates their profiles, but also creates a "memorial" page that it sends to users' former Facebook friends. Facebook evidently isn't happy about this development. Last month, the company fired off a cease-and-desist letter to Les Liens Invisibles, complaining that users who provide log-in data are violating Facebook's terms of service. The company also alleges that the scraping of its data violates a host of laws, including an anti-hacking law, the federal spam law and the copyright statute. "

FaceBook is sooooo concerned about our privacy!

"Faced with increasing pressure from Washington, the Interactive Advertising Bureau launched a public service campaign on Thursday aimed at educating consumers about behavioral targeting. The online campaign, created pro bono by WPP's Schematic, features rich media banner ads with copy like "Advertising is creepy" and "Hey, this banner can tell where you live. Mind if we come over and sell you stuff?" More than one dozen publishers -- including Microsoft, Google's YouTube, and AOL -- have committed to donate a combined 500 million impressions for the initiative. The campaign comes as policymakers are questioning whether data collection by marketers violates consumers' privacy. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has said he plans to introduce a bill that could require Web companies to notify users about online ad targeting, and in some circumstances, obtain their explicit consent. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has criticized the industry for using dense privacy policies to inform people about behavioral targeting, or tracking people online and sending them ads based on sites visited. In a meeting with reporters Thursday morning, IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said one goal of the campaign is to address regulators' concerns that consumers don't understand behavioral advertising. "

"Web users are not yet deleting Flash cookies as often as they shed more traditional cookies, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to use Flash technology to track consumers online. That's according to a new report commissioned by media audit company BPA Worldwide. The report, authored by analytics expert Eric Peterson, warns that the use of Flash cookies, also called "local shared objects," to override consumers' choices could invite new privacy laws. "With the attention given to consumer privacy on the Internet at both individual and governmental levels, we believe that companies making inappropriate or irresponsible use of the Flash technology are very likely asking for trouble, (and potentially putting the rest of the online industry at risk of additional government regulation)," writes Peterson, CEO and principal consultant at Web Analytics Demystified. "

Flash cookies may draw additional legislation for the online advertising industry.

"A privacy watchdog's criticisms of Facebook appear to have captured the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. In a letter dated Jan. 14, David Vladeck, head of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, told the Electronic Privacy Information Center that its complaint about recent privacy changes at Facebook "raises issues of particular interest for us at this time." Vladeck added that he has asked an official to arrange a followup meeting with EPIC, but also said he can't currently confirm or deny whether the FTC has opened an investigation. FTC investigations are not public until the agency either issues a complaint or closes the matter. The FTC's consumer protection chief also said in his letter to EPIC that the commission plans to focus on privacy issues raised by social networks at the next roundtable, scheduled to be held in Berkeley, Calif. on Jan. 28. "

FTC may investigate privacy issues on FaceBook? Equal bang for the buck by identifying and educating users who post way too much personal information.

If done artfully and well, mobile media and technology is capable of reversing a century-old model of selling -- where salespeople went to people's homes or waited for interested consumers to come to them. In some ways, mobile replaces the traveling and in-store salesmen with the newer (albeit slightly creepy) model of the "following salesman."

In advanced markets, the firm believes the promise of mobile payments driven by NFC technology is at least four years away from reaching mass adoption. "The biggest hurdle is the need to change user behavior by convincing consumers to pay with mobile phones instead of cash and cards," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.

More consumers are growing comfortable with online behavioral targeting, perhaps as a result of an increase in familiarity, but the majority remain uneasy with the practice. That's according to a new study conducted by TNS on behalf of the privacy group Truste. For the study, consumers were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement: "I am comfortable with advertisers using my browsing history to serve me relevant ads, as long as that information cannot be tied to my name or any other personal information." Twenty-eight percent of respondents agreed, up from 24% who agreed when the same study was conducted last year. At the same time, 51% said they disagreed that they were comfortable with anonymous behavioral targeting. While that figure represents a slim majority, it's down from last year, when 57% of respondents said they disagreed. At the same time, more respondents than in the past now say they delete cookies. Almost half--48% of survey respondents--said they erase cookies at least weekly, up from 42% last year. It's not clear how much overlap there is between the respondents that regularly delete cookies and those who say they're uncomfortable with behavioral targeting. Colin O'Malley, vice president of strategic business at Truste, attributed the increase in the proportion of consumers who said they were comfortable with behavioral targeting to increased publicity over the issue. He said the recent attention to the issue in the mainstream media has helped to increase transparency. He added that the increased cookie erasures showed that consumers want to be able to manage their experience. "Cookie deletion is just one more indication that consumers are seeking tools to increase their level of control," he said.

A court has handed Blockbuster a preliminary defeat in a potential class-action lawsuit filed as a result of its participation in Facebook's ill-fated Beacon ad program, which notified members about their friends' e-commerce activity. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Lynn in Dallas ruled that the case could proceed in court even though Blockbuster's contract with users calls for any disputes to be heard by an arbitrator rather than in court, and also says that users waive their right to file a class action lawsuit. Lynn determined that Blockbuster's contract with users was "illusory" because the agreement said that movie rental store could change the terms and conditions at any time. A Blockbuster spokesperson declined to comment on the case or state whether the company will appeal. The decision is a blow to Blockbuster because individual consumers would have had a difficult time bringing cases one-by-one against the company. But the decision paves the way for attorneys to argue that all consumers affected by Blockbuster's participation in Beacon should be able to proceed as a class. Internet law expert Venkat Balasubramani said Lynn's decision invalidating Blockbuster's user agreement was potentially far-reaching because many Web companies reserve the right to make changes to their terms of service. "It seems broad and could have impact on the terms of service used by a lot of different companies," he said.

Google will unveil new privacy measures today that will give consumers more control over behavioral targeting. Now, when Google serves banner ads on outside publishers' sites, the ads will include links that provide more information explaining why they were served. Clicking through will lead to details about the company's behavioral advertising program, which categorizes consumers as interested in particular types of goods or services based on the sites they visited. The program is only in beta for now, but once Google signs up publishers, consumers will be able to view the categories they have been placed in--such as "interested in travel"--and also tell Google to remove them from whatever buckets they wish. Consumers also will be able to opt out of the program permanently via a browser plug-in. Or, if people want to receive ads for certain types of products, they can edit their profiles to reflect that--in effect, opting in to particular types of ads. Google's new measures come at a time when online behavioral targeting is facing increased scrutiny. Last month, two Federal Trade Commissioners warned that the online advertising industry could face new laws if it didn't take steps to self-regulate on privacy issues. Recently, Google rival Yahoo announced enhancements to its privacy policies. Among other changes, Yahoo said it would allow consumers to opt out of behavioral targeting on its own site. Google's move drew praise from the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Mike Zaneis, vice president for public policy. "It's really a consumer empowerment tool, which is great," he said. "It's one more example of how industry is competing on the privacy issue, to the benefit of consumers--and also to the benefit of businesses."

New Jersey lawmakers are considering new legislation that would require Facebook, MySpace and others to police social networking sites for offensive posts or else face potential consumer fraud lawsuits. But some lawyers say that even if the measure is enacted, it's not likely to have much impact on social networking sites because the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes such sites from lawsuits based on material posted by users. The bill is part of state Attorney General Anne Milgram's Internet safety initiative. "The social networking site safety act is intended to deter cyber-bullying and the misuse of social networking Web sites," the Office of Attorney General said in a statement about the measure. "The bill empowers users of social networking sites to take steps to stop harassment or exploitation." Last year, Milgram garnered headlines by launching a fraud investigation of gossip site JuicyCampus.com -- where users frequently posted insults about college students -- but no legal action resulted. (That site folded last month for financial reasons.) Attempts to rein in cyberbullying might be politically popular, but this type of state effort to regulate global Web sites is also likely to prove useless, say cyber lawyers. "We need to recognize that legislating on the Internet can't be done on a state-by-state basis," said Parry Aftab, an expert on Web safety and cyber-abuse. "We can't have a different law in each state."

Defunct behavioral targeting company NebuAd did not just spur complaints by lawmakers and privacy advocates. This week, NebuAd's defense lawyers filed papers with the federal district court in San Francisco asking to withdraw as counsel in a privacy lawsuit. In a motion dated Monday, attorney Thomas Gilbertsen alleges that NebuAd is behind on its legal bills -- in some cases by more than 45 days. He also argues that because NebuAd is out of business, no officers or employees are available to help with the defense. "Because NebuAd has essentially ceased to exist, it can no longer participate in this case," states the motion. Gilbertsen also asked that the case be delayed pending NebuAd's liquidation and the resolution of creditors' claims. Gilbertsen also says in court papers that counsel and NebuAd have "irreconcilable differences." He did not elaborate in the motion or return messages seeking comment.

Taking a step toward creating more formal standards, the Interactive Advertising Bureau Monday released a set of best practices for social media advertising covering key terms, creative elements, and user privacy, among other topics. The guidelines unveiled at the IAB's Social Media Marketplace conference in New York are intended to encourage the growth of social advertising by giving marketers, agencies and social networks preliminary rules to navigate a category that now spans hundreds of millions of users. "Industry standards are essential to making social media easy, safe and scalable for advertisers," said Seth Goldstein, CEO of Socialmedia.com and co-chair of the IAB's UGC Social Media Committee, in a statement. "The new IAB framework is a critical first step in this direction and we are excited to help enable the next generation of social advertising." While marketers have been eager to experiment with social media, a lack of standard ad formats and metrics and privacy concerns remain obstacles to more rapid advertising growth on social sites. Even so, Forrester Research projects that social media marketing will increase nearly 60% this year to $716 million.

A recent talk by some Federal Trade Commission officials confirms that the agency is taking a hard look at online advertising practices. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference, new consumer protection chief David Vladeck had harsh words for the behavioral targeting industry's current privacy practices. The "current approach is not working," he said, according to the law firm Arnold & Porter, which blogged about the speech. Vladeck reportedly said many companies' current practice of notifying users about online ad targeting and allowing them to opt out is inadequate, largely because people don't understand the policies. He's not the first to make this observation. Advocates and policymakers have said for years that privacy policies are incomprehensible even to sophisticated users. A recent study by UC Berkeley School also shows that the policies are filled with enough loopholes as to be meaningless. Meanwhile, consumer protection deputy Eileen Harrington, who also talked at the same event, reportedly called deep packet inspection the most dangerous form of data collection, according to a blog post by the law firm Perkins Coie.

Yahoo Tuesday announced that has developed a feature that will allow users to opt out of behavioral targeting on mobile devices. "We believe the mobile experience should offer the same privacy protections consumers expect to find on the PC," Yahoo said in a blog post announcing the feature. "Furthermore, management of privacy protections should be available via any mobile device, whether that's an iPhone or a Blackberry." Many companies that track people's Web activity on PCs and send them ads notify users about the practice and allow them to opt out. But it's still unusual for behavioral targeting companies in the mobile space to let people opt out. At least a dozen companies say they offer some form of mobile behavioral targeting. But only two appear to allow users to opt out, according to Jules Polonetsky, co-chair and director of the think tank Future of Privacy Forum.

A new privacy law in Maine is facing a court challenge from media organizations as well as a coalition of online companies including AOL, News Corp. and Yahoo. The new law, officially titled "An Act To Prevent Predatory Marketing Practices against Minors," prohibits companies from knowingly collecting personal information or health-related information from minors under 18 without their parents' consent. The measure also bans companies from selling or transferring health information about minors that identifies them, regardless of how the data was collected. Wednesday, opponents asked the federal district court in Maine to issue an injunction against the measure, slated to take effect Sept. 12. In its court papers, the groups opposing the law say it has consequences far beyond limiting the marketing of health-care information. They contend the measure would "prevent common marketing practices used to serve teens information on colleges, test prep services, class rings, etc." The groups who are suing include the Maine Independent Colleges Association, Maine Press Association, Reed Elsevier and NetChoice -- a coalition of Web companies like AOL, eBay, Yahoo, IAC, News Corp. and Overstock.com.

Following on the heels of Facebook's decision to rescind a highly controversial move to store all content posted on the social network, new data has emerged to support consumers' increasing alarm over online privacy. The vast majority--80.1%--of Web surfers are indeed concerned about the privacy of their personal information such as age, gender, income and Web-surfing habits, according to a survey of some 4,000 Web users administered and analyzed by Burst Media. More worrisome, perhaps, is the finding that privacy concerns are prevalent among all age segments, including younger demographics that are coming of age online. Still, privacy concerns do appear to increase with age, from 67.3% among respondents ages 18-24 to 85.7% of respondents 55 years and older. "Online privacy is a prevailing concern for web surfers," said Chuck Moran, vice president of marketing for Burst Media. The survey was administered by Burst with the purpose of better understanding how privacy is impacting Web users' experiences online, as well as its impact on advertisers. "Advertisers must take concrete actions to mitigate consumers' privacy concerns and at the same time continue to deliver their message as effectively as possible," Moran added. "In addition, and as recently seen in the news flare up regarding Facebook's privacy controversy, publishers need to be completely transparent about their privacy policies." Facebook recently changed its terms of use agreement, which gave the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company the ability to store user-posted photos and other content, even after it was deleted by users themselves. Earlier this week, however, the company reverted to a previous version of its legal user guidelines after thousands of members protested that Facebook was claiming ownership over the content. In addition, the Burst survey found that most Web users believe Web sites are tracking their behavior online. Three out of five--62.5%--respondents indicated it is likely that a W