Ad Industry Works on Ads About Ads - Digits - WSJ - 0 views
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Karl Wabst on 24 Nov 09"Madison Avenue has joined forces with Internet companies in a last-ditch attempt to stop privacy regulations over the $29 billion online-ad industry. The industry is finalizing an ad campaign to educate consumers about how digital advertising works, creating an icon that would appear on Web pages or ads alerting consumers if their activity is being tracked and deploying new technologies to police the Web for illegal activities. At issue is the practice of tracking consumers' Web activities - from the searches they make to the sites they visit and the products they buy - for the purpose of targeting ads. The efforts follow calls from the FTC earlier this year for Web advertisers and Internet companies to do a better job explaining how they track and use information about consumers' Web activities and creating a simple way consumers can opt out of being tracked. Meanwhile, scrutiny in Washington continues to build. Lawmakers and regulators have broadened their scope beyond the Internet and are starting to examine privacy practices for a wider swath of media and technologies, from mobile phones and newfangled interactive TV commercials to telephone pitches and the advertisements consumers receive in their mailboxes."