Behaviour Targeting Targeted

Ok, Behavioral targeting has been in the news and apparently is under further scrutiny as 10 consumer *and privacy organizations* (list below) on September 1, called on congress to enact legislation limiting and preventing behavior targeting and tracking.

What is out there? – There are onsite advertising decision providers like Omniture, Audience Science etc? After all, there are no third party cookies to be blocked, the load time is quicker. Hardly, the third party cookie advertising targeting systems guys like Double Click, Value Click, Tribal Fusion, etc are still the best game in town for ecommerce companies who are reliant on advertising as their core revenue generator, like publishing. Since they serve advertising across a spectrum of sites they have a reservoir of personas and demographics – a great advantage. Additionally, they have a readymade data set.

The onsite advertising decision providers do provide value and an advantage in the authenticated space like financial institutions, online banking, etc. Once a user is logged in, there is a lot more personal information that that can be added on to develop a target dataset. However, to track a user over time, takes time.

Online advertising continues to walk that fine line. Well, let’s see how it all plays out.

*Center for Digital Democracy
*Consumer Federation of America
*Consumers Union
*Consumer Watchdog
*Electronic Frontier Foundation
*Privacy Lives
*Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
*Privacy Times
*U.S. Public Interest Research Group
*The World Privacy Forum