Data cops seek ‘urgent clarification’ on new Facebook advertiser plans • The Register

Is anyone really surprised that FB are trying to leverage the profile data they have?

The company – which plunged onto Nasdaq in May this year – is doing everything it can to shake as much ad revenue out of the site as possible by unsurprisingly proposing to open its users’ data even more. Some have suggested that this means Facebook will build unified profiles of its users akin to, say, those of Google+.

For example, now that photo-sharing site Instagram is part of the Facebook family, one of the proposals is for the company to share data across its growing estate.

via Data cops seek ‘urgent clarification’ on new Facebook advertiser plans • The Register.

Facebook Remains Gaping Hole in Advertising Industrys Privacy Program | Digital – Advertising Age

Can you have industry self-regulation if one of the biggest players isnt following the guidelines?Thats the challenge for online advertising in the face of mounting privacy concerns, and the source is one of the webs biggest ad sellers: Facebook.The social-media giant is running behaviorally targeted ads on its site that dont include the little triangular icons that are the public face of the industrys push to be more transparent about targeting.

via Facebook Remains Gaping Hole in Advertising Industrys Privacy Program | Digital – Advertising Age.

It’s Not Viewability, but Noticeability, That Really Counts | DigitalNext: A Blog on Emerging Media and Technology – Advertising Age

A viewable impression in a cluttered environment is unlikely ever to be noticed. Many of today’s pages are a hot mess of links, content, graphics, skins, unrequested video and floating banners. They are an assault on the senses, and one sense in particular — our vision — does some quick filtering to skip through the obstacles and find what we came for. If the cognitive dissonance is too strong, we’re gone. The ads we skipped counted as viewable, but we never noticed them.

via It’s Not Viewability, but Noticeability, That Really Counts | DigitalNext: A Blog on Emerging Media and Technology – Advertising Age.

Facebook to Help Brands Track Ad-Driven Sales | Adweek

I’m amazed that Facebook are only just doing this now – Advertising.com have done it for years as have most other networks.

Here’s how the self-serve tool works. Marketers add a piece of code from Facebook to whichever site pages they want to measure conversions on, be it a checkout page or an email newsletter sign-up page. When users click on a Facebook ad that leads them to that page, Facebook will see that the page loaded and count it as a conversion in the marketer’s Ads Manager dashboard.The real key is that the tool can unlock the full path to conversion from a Facebook ad.

via Facebook to Help Brands Track Ad-Driven Sales | Adweek.

Do Native Ads Work? Survey asks consumers what they think of the format

Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, Sponsored Stories on Facebook and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.

via AdWeek

American Apparel causes Twitter outrage with ‘Hurricane Sandy Sale’ | The Wall Blog

When will brands ever learn? Do people not use the internet and read stuff? When it comes to social media we are now at a point when we have a fat pile of case files detailing how various brands have failed at social media, but this does not apparently stop other brands copying these mistakes over and over again.

This time around it is the turn of American Apparel. It has had the bright idea of rolling out a “Hurricane Sandy Sale” ad and as you might guess has sparked something of a Twitter backlash and ensured its brand will forever be linked with the words “social media fail”.

via American Apparel causes Twitter outrage with ‘Hurricane Sandy Sale’ | The Wall Blog.

Anti-Gay Advertisement In Worst Possible Place (PHOTO)

Sure, we’re all mildly suspicious about targeted advertising. But if your browsing habits indicate that you’re a raging homophobe who really thinks Obama is trying to force gay marriage down the throats of an unwilling public, as the ad in the top right reflects, maybe this is the kind of thing that could change your mind.

By the way, here’s a link to the video.

via Anti-Gay Advertisement In Worst Possible Place (PHOTO).

Do Not Track – Internet Privacy Bill and ‘do not track’ support

Back in February The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights was formally unveiled in the US, and it endorses the ‘Do not track’ web browser functionality that already has the support of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.
In many respects it’s similar to the existing cookie laws being implemented across Europe. The Bill comes at the same time as the European Union is preparing similar regulations. I believe the current cookie law is flawed but has the right ideas at it’s heart. Making end users decide on a website by website basis is painful for the website owners having to implement code to ensure this happens and painful for the consumer it seeks to protect by bombarding them with information and pop-ups they will probably never read or understand.

I think making use of existing technology in the browser is by far the most sensible solution. The browser can contain a list of sites the user is happy to share data with and by default it could reject information sharing until a user has actively chosen to share data.

This would be persistent which is another concern for me when considering the cookie law. If a consumer deletes his/her cookies then their preferences are deleted.

So in the interest of seeing how website owners could honour DNT (do not track) I searched in vain for a matrix of browser support for the functionality within browsers. Information is sparse. Some sites quote browser support for DNT coming in new releases, others states that the browser already supports it (although I’ve not managed to find how to switch it on) . Add to this confusion that individual browser manufacturers are implementing DNT support in different ways and there is a headache waiting to happen.

I’m

Disclaimer: I currently work for AOL and work on privacy issues including the EU “cookie law”