U.S. consumer-privacy groups yesterday asked the FTC to consider a "Do Not Track" list -- an online equivalent of the telemarketing industry's Do Not Call Registry. "Do Not Track" would allow consumers to opt-out of internet advertising programs that track their behavior online.
Behavioral targeting is one of the hottest forms of advertising on the Internet, second only to Google pay-per-click in matching advertising offers with consumer interests. With behavioral targeting, advertisers place cookies on a user's computer, track which web sites that consumer goes to and what the consumer clicks on, and then offer up banner ads that hopefully are relevant. In our own tests, we've found click-through rates from behavioral-targeted banner ads are about 0.70%, five times higher than the average banner click-through rate of 0.14%.
The LA Times reports the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the World Privacy Forum and the Center for Democracy and Technology brought up the issue just as the FTC was preparing for workshops on behavioral targeting. Also yesterday, AOL announced it would offer consumers its own opt-out system by the end of the year. The impact could be huge -- the Do Not Call registry pretty much destroyed the telemarketing industry.
Consumers may want to think twice before allowing online Do Not Track. Online banner ads are nowhere near as intrusive as phone calls that interrupt your 6 p.m. dinner -- and those little colorful banners pay for most of the web content consumers see for free. U.S. internet ad revenues were almost $10 billion in the first six months of 2007, and that's a lot of cash to make up if the ads no longer work.
If the rug gets pulled from effective online advertising, web sites may have to make money the old-fashioned way: by charging you admission.
1 comments:
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