When we launched BrightTag ONE-Click Privacy last year, we gave site owners the tools to provide meaningful choices to consumers while responding to privacy regulations that vary by country. By integrating our site-level privacy controls with consumer choice tools, brands can offer clear “one-click” privacy options that stop sending data to third-parties when users opt out.

Today, we are announcing enhancements to our privacy toolkit that have been built in partnership with clients who are taking immediate action to comply with new privacy laws in Europe. With the UK’s looming May 26th deadline for the EU Cookie Directive, many companies are faced with the daunting prospect of potentially rearchitecting their websites to comply with the cookie consent requirement.

Specifically, sites need granular-level control over the tag code that sets non-essential cookies on every page of their sites. BrightTag ONE-Click Privacy simplifies compliance by leveraging the power of our BrightTag ONE integration platform to dynamically manage which tags and cookies are delivered to a computer or device based on a user’s consent preferences.

Because the EU regulations are new, though, it’s up to the website owner’s privacy team to build its own policies and make judgment calls about which cookies are essential and how to best gain cookie consent. Because regulations differ, the approach taken in the UK may not be the approach that’s needed in other countries, even though the user may be visiting the exact same website.

In partnering with the privacy teams at our global clients, we have learned that the ability to implement privacy governance now – and adapt quickly to changes as EU regulations evolve in the future – are critical to the success of compliance programs. As a result, we have added the following enhancements to BrightTag ONE:

• Flexible Policy Setup and Management – Simultaneous support for opt-in/opt-out privacy choices in multiple countries
• Intelligent Defaults – BrightTag ONE Partner tags now include a default privacy classification that serves as a starting point for privacy policies
• Granular Controls – Simple interface for categorizing individual tags and setting up custom privacy policies

We recognize that the privacy landscape is confusing which is why we have set out to design a flexible set of privacy tools that allow brands to easily implement what can often be a complex set of requirements across the globe.

Turnkey EU Privacy Solution Through Integration with TRUSTe
Also today, we are announcing a partnership with TRUSTe, the leading global privacy management solution provider. TRUSTe has a full suite of solutions for EU Privacy including their real-time preference management platform, TRUSTed Consent Manager.

Our integration with TRUSTed Consent Manager extends the capabilities of TRUSTe’s product for indicating “express” or “implied” consent to place cookies on a site. BrightTag’s enabling technology ensures that when a user opts out, the tags that place cookies are suppressed and no tracking code is placed on the end user’s computer or device.

You can read more about our integration with TRUSTe on the TRUSTed Consent Manager product page as well as in the press release.

Interested in more?

• Learn the difference between tags and cookies in our Tag 101 FAQ
• Read more about the BrightTag ONE-Click Privacy feature.
• Request a demo of BrightTag ONE by clicking the “Get a Demo” button at the top of this page.
• Contact us to learn more about BrightTag’s views on privacy

Joint Solution Combines Industry-Leading Privacy and Tag Management Platforms to Provide Businesses With an Integrated Solution to Address the EU Cookie Directive

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – TRUSTe, the leading global privacy management solutions provider, and BrightTag, a technology platform provider for the digital marketing industry, today announced a technology partnership to expand the TRUSTe EU Privacy Management Suite. The technology partnership will integrate TRUSTe’s comprehensive EU privacy solutions with BrightTag’s industry-leading tag management and integration platform, helping companies to quickly and easily address the EU Cookie Directive.

With this turnkey solution, businesses can seamlessly combine their tag and privacy management services, delivering on-site notice for informed consent, as well as assuring consumer consent choices.

“Our collaboration with BrightTag allows us to deliver TRUSTe’s EU privacy solutions at the source of data collection,” said Chris Babel, CEO for TRUSTe. “This deep integration benefits companies by enabling them to address the EU Cookie Directive and also benefits consumers by providing additional assurance that their privacy choices are being honored.”

“As an established leader creating privacy tools for consumers, TRUSTe provides website operators with a comprehensive out-of-the-box privacy solution to simplify cookie auditing and address the EU Cookie Directive’s requirement for informed consent,” said Mike Sands, CEO for BrightTag. “BrightTag’s enabling technology helps TRUSTe deliver a robust cookie consent solution that can be simply and quickly implemented.”

TRUSTe and BrightTag Integration Delivers Turnkey Solution for the EU Cookie Directive Through integration with the BrightTag ONE(TM) platform, TRUSTe has extended the capabilities of its EU Privacy Management Suite. TRUSTe’s flagship high-performance, real-time preference management platform, TRUSTed Consent Manager, is now linked with the unique capabilities of the BrightTag ONE integration platform that controls when and where tags and cookies are placed on a site-by-site basis. Consent Manager allows companies to:

– Quickly and easily implement a full suite of EU privacy and tag management controls that address the EU Cookie Directive, including:
– auditing,
– notice and consent, and
– centralized and simplified tag management and cookie controls;
– Deliver control over how third-party marketing and analytics tags collect and distribute data on their sites; and
– Classify tracking technologies on their sites in order to adhere to different levels of data collection standards required by the EU
Cookie Directive.

The TRUSTe-BrightTag solution also ensures the very highest privacy standards by leveraging TRUSTe’s more than 14 years of online privacy expertise and recognized leadership as the leading global privacy management solutions provider.

The EU Cookie Directive requires that websites provide consumers with simple and easy-to-understand information regarding their choices for consent*, yet most websites were not designed for cookie control. Featuring the TRUSTed Consent Manager, the TRUSTe-BrightTag solution gives consumers clear transparency and choice regarding the collection and use of their personal data and can be easily implemented by website operators.

TRUSTed Consent Manager supports the informed consent requirement of the EU Cookie Directive and allows websites to implement either express or implied consent notices. As website operators determine the best way to communicate informed consent to their end users, they can leverage BrightTag’s highly flexible platform to only allow cookies to be set that the consumer has approved.

Availability

TRUSTed Consent Manager and the privacy features within BrightTag ONE are available separately now, and are also available as an integrated solution. For additional information, contact TRUSTe at eu_sales@truste.com or 1-888-878-7830 or visit http://www.truste.com/eu-consent-manager .

About BrightTag

BrightTag provides industry-leading tag management and data distribution solutions that help companies make their online data instantly useful in any web or mobile application, while solving fundamental privacy, data quality and site performance challenges. The BrightTag ONE(TM) integration platform moves beyond tags by directly connecting sites to services in real time, eliminating barriers and speeding innovation. BrightTag’s clients include many of the world’s top brands and hundreds of online marketing and analytics providers continue to integrate their technology with BrightTag ONE. BrightTag was named by VentureWire and an independent board of review at Dow Jones as one of the 50 most innovative technology companies of 2011 and a member of the FASTech50.

About TRUSTe

TRUSTe is the leading global privacy management solutions provider and offers a broad suite of solutions that enable multinational companies to safely and efficiently handle the customer data powering their online businesses — including advertising, cloud services, mobile applications, and websites. Over 5,000 web properties from top companies like Apple, Disney, eBay, Forbes, HP, Microsoft, and rely on TRUSTe to ensure compliance with evolving and complex international privacy requirements. TRUSTe’s mission, based on a “Truth in Privacy” framework, is built on a solid foundation of transparency, choice and accountability regarding the collection and use of personal information. TRUSTe’s privacy seal is recognized and trusted by millions of consumers worldwide as a sign of responsible privacy practices. For additional information on TRUSTe and its offerings, please visit http://www.truste.com .

*It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access. The methods of providing information and offering the right to refuse should be as user-friendly as possible.

LONDON & NEW YORK - The latest in a series of exclusive insider webinars on the EU ePrivacy Directive is to be hosted 22 March by Evidon, the world leader in empowering consumers and businesses to see, understand and control data online. This 90-minute session will specifically address the issues facing sell-side companies – ad networks, DSPs, trading desks, publishers and others – as businesses look to demonstrate compliance and increased tracking transparency in accordance with the often ambiguous guidance provided by regulators.

This practical open session will include anecdotal evidence from the sell-side itself on what companies are already doing to comply with the EU ePrivacy Directive before the 26-May deadline in the UK, and how they’re communicating the issue to consumers. In addition, there will be an in-depth exploration of third party responsibilities, workable consent mechanisms and other examples of best practice.

Taking part will be IAB’s Director of Regulatory Affairs, Nick Stringer; Daniel de Sybel, Director of Technology and Operations at Infectious Media; Zuzanna Gierlinska, Global Agency Director of Microsoft Advertising; Jonathan Harris, Digital Associate Director, Starcom MediaVest Group; and Evidon CEO Scott Meyer and CSO Colin O’Malley.

“There’s mounting pressure on the sell-side from government officials, legal experts and trade bodies to show they understand the Directive and can demonstrate progress towards the transparency mandate,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon. “But many questions remain and sticking our heads in the sand is just not an option anymore. This webinar will help clarify the rudimentary elements of the law, and help businesses operating within the EU and who have yet to formulate a strategy to get on the right track.”

The session takes place 10am ET/2pm GMT, 22 March 2012 and will last one hour and 30 minutes. To register attendance, please visit http://tinyurl.com/6nbaev3.

ABOUT EVIDON

Evidon empowers consumers and businesses to see, understand and control data online.

With insights fueled by its Ghostery browser extension and rich, 800+ company privacy database, Evidon enables businesses to assess the cookies and other tracking activity on their websites, helping them to protect their audience data and improve performance.

As the first and largest dedicated provider of privacy and compliance solutions for digital media, Evidon also enables leading brands, agencies, publishers, advertising networks and others to comply easily with privacy laws and self-regulatory programs across North America and Europe. Evidon serves over a billion “Ad Choices” notices daily on behalf of these businesses – in the U.S. and in local languages across Europe – giving consumers transparency into and control over how their information is used online.

By protecting themselves and empowering consumers, businesses build their brands and improve results.

For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

New York – LiveIntent, the platform for buying and selling email ad inventory exactly like display, is now supporting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) consumer notification offering, AdChoices. This self-regulatory service is being deployed by LiveIntent to support consumer awareness and choice in online advertising. Consumer privacy and control is a top concern for LiveIntent, and complying with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) is a priority.

LiveIntent’s technology serves ads into a publisher’s email newsletters. When the user opens an email sent by any standard email service provider (ESP) that contains a LiveIntent ad tag, LiveIntent’s server delivers that reader the most relevant ad in real-time, right to their inbox, based on the user’s device, location, time of day and more. LiveIntent allows publishers to extend their premium display inventory into email and achieve 100 percent sell-through, all while maintaining full control of their inventory.

Now, all ads served by LiveIntent technology may contain the AdChoices logo. Clicking on the logo will bring users to the LiveIntent AdChoices page that explains why that ad was served to them and how they can opt-out of future ads from LiveIntent. There, users will also be able to read about LiveIntent’s privacy policy as well as visit the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance to see their opt-out choices from other participating companies.

“At LiveIntent, we’re committed to being fully transparent and notifying users of their choices,” said Matt Keiser, CEO, LiveIntent. “Consumers have the right to know they are being targeted for ads and making them aware of this trackingwill strengthen advertiser-consumer trust in the long term.”

LiveIntent for Publishers (LFP) enables publishers to insert LiveTags into their newsletter templates to serve direct sold and LiveIntent exchange campaigns into emails newsletters, to monetize and maximize the yield of their newsletter inventory. LiveIntent for Advertisers (LFA) give marketers the ability to target and deliver ads to relevant audiences, on email open while optimizing results.

“We strive to be fully transparent to our readers and all consumers,” said Brian Riback, E-Marketing Strategist for The New York Daily News. “As our readership grows, we want to continue to protect consumer privacy and remain completely supportive to our readers, whether we reach them on the desktop, tablet or mobile.”

“Maintaining a rock-solid relationship with our customers is paramount as we look to keep the highest standards of choice in how they consume ads every day,” said Paul Rostkowski, President of Varick Media Management (VMM).  “Having LiveIntent be AdChoices-compliant gives us the assurance and confidence in their process of delivering our ads to the people who want to see them.”

About LiveIntent
LiveIntent is the only company with a real-time display ad platform for email. LiveIntent works with advertisers, publishers and agencies to provide ad optimization, DSP / trading desk and exchanges capabilities. The company is venture-backed by Shasta Ventures, Battery Ventures, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Grape Arbor VC. LiveIntent was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in NYC. For more information and a demonstration of the company’s technology in your own inbox, visit www.liveintent.com.

NEW YORK – interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) announced that the sole remaining federal claim alleging violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the state law claims for breach of implied contract and tortious interference have all been dismissed with prejudice by the United States District Court after determining the plaintiff had no legal basis to support her claim. The plaintiff and her counsel may not re-file those claims.

In December of 2010, Sonal Bose filed a lawsuit, seeking class action status, against interclick, Inc. alleging that interclick’s online advertising practices violated numerous state and federal acts. On August 17, 2011, ruling on interclick’s motion to dismiss, the Court granted the dismissal of the above claims with prejudice. This follows the March 21, 2011 decision by the plaintiff to voluntarily withdraw her claim that interclick had violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

The Court also dismissed all claims against the advertiser defendants with prejudice.

“As we have said from the beginning, interclick has always taken consumer privacy very seriously and these claims were brought without merit. We are pleased that the central claims in the litigation have been dismissed by The United States District Court,” said Michael Katz, CEO of interclick.

About interclick

Powered by OSM, interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) offers proprietary data-valuation capabilities combining analytical expertise and media fulfillment to help marketers navigate the complex data ecosystem to drive successful online display and video campaigns.  OSM is a powerful solution which aggregates and organizes billions of data points from 3rd party providers – delivering actionable consumer insights, scalable audiences and the most effective campaign execution.

For more information, visit http://www.interclick.com.

Tremendous Growth of Companies utilizing the “Ad Choices” Icon via Evidon Continues as Opt-Out Rates Remain; More than 80 million US internet users served ads with Ad Choices Icon delivered by Evidon each day

Greenlight Program Ensures Exponential Spike at IAB Deadline in Late August

NEW YORK – Evidon, the leading provider of compliance services for the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), announced that it has served the 50 billionth impression of the Advertising Choices Icon on behalf of licensees of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and its industry self-regulatory program, The company announced that more than 80 million unique users are served ads with the Ad Choices Icon delivered by Evidon each day. The specific 50 billionth creative unit was served on the morning of Friday, July 29. Even as the program’s growth and the number of companies working with Evidon have both accelerated, the opt-out rate on impressions served by Evidon remains extremely low.

“We’ve been operating at scale for nearly a year now, so this number – which is largely comprised of brands and agencies who are just getting started – is about to get a whole lot bigger,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon. “With more than 130 brands, agencies, publishers, networks, and technology providers as clients, and with so many of them having joined our Greenlight program and having pledged to be fully compliant by the IAB deadline of August 28, we expect to see this number go through the roof by Labor Day.”

Evidon Data

Below is a snapshot of aggregate data from the more than 80 million unique users who see the icon every day, thanks to the scale of delivery provided by Evidon, which routinely exceeds 500M impressions/day and is growing:

In aggregate, there have been roughly 2.3 million interactions with Ad Choices Icon served by Evidon across more than 50 billion advertising impressions.

Evidon has handled roughly 500,000 opt out requests for these 50 billion impressions

“The industry self-regulatory program is designed to give users as much transparency as possible as simply as possible,” said Stu Ingis, Partner at Washington, DC law firm Venable, and Counsel to the DAA. “We’re watching this very closely as the program scales with specific focus on consumer awareness of and interaction with the icon.”

Research

Additionally Evidon announced that it has selected Knowledge Networks (KN), a leader in innovative online research that represents the full U.S. population, to examine consumer perceptions of the Evidon InForm experience for consumers. Multiple studies, beginning with Evidon’s own baseline research last November, (http://blog.evidon.com/tag/better-advertising/), have suggested that consumers overwhelmingly favor the new transparency that the industry self-regulatory program provides. Knowledge Networks will enhance and enlarge this research with far more granularity and depth.

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

The widespread adoption of audience targeting by Madison Avenue has prompted the Federal Trade Commission to call for more oversight of the industry through a proposed solution named Do Not Track (DNT). While the government’s intention is noble, DNT has become somewhat of a misnomer by adding more confusion than clarity. It’s time that we set the record straight.

The conversations taking place about behavioral targeting is occurring between the wrong parties. As DNT stands today, the dialogue is happening between consumers and monetization platforms, which are providing a universal opt-out feature at the browser level. Rather, this conversation should be between consumers and publishers.

Publishers need the ability to monetize their content either through subscriptions or ad-supported content, while users need to know how their information is being used. Therefore, what’s needed is a more balanced approach that acknowledges the benefits of subsidized content and illustrates trade-offs in a non-advertising world. What is not being discussed is how DNT in its current form is a mechanism for shutting down this process that otherwise funds content that provides value to both consumers and publishers.

Much has been made of the similarities between DNT and the Do-Not-Call list introduced by lawmakers in the 1990s to address the rising concern of telemarketers. This comparison is misplaced and points people in the wrong direction. Since phone bills have always been paid by the consumer, there is no value for them to take telemarketing calls. So Do-Not-Call was created to give the ultimate choice to the paying consumer. Sounds fair to me. But let’s be clear that there is no parallel to DNT where consumers are getting free content. Would consumers have agreed to get telemarketing calls if their phone service was free? Maybe. Does it make sense to offer free phone service if there is no value to the provider? That’s the question we need to address with DNT. Otherwise, DNT should be named the “Do Not Pay – let someone else pay for me” feature.

What is needed is not less or more regulation, but a revision to the current DNT proposals that preserves the interests of both consumers and publishers by giving them control over DNT. So what would that revision look like? Here’s an example:

- Users would have the ability to select DNT settings in their browser.
- This preference would be recognized by the publisher site the user navigates to.
- The Publisher site presents the user with a message that acknowledges their DNT setting and asks if the Publisher can override that setting to give them a better site experience, more free content, etc.
- Users choose! (Their DNT preference is applicable for this publisher site only.)

This model would open the lines of communication between consumers and publishers on the application of DNT while preserving the benefits of monetization for publishers and the service (aka free content) provided to consumers. It is also vitally important that DNT not erase cookies as this would still be counterproductive in the disruption of the monetization process for ad-supported content (e-commerce would be severely impacted). What it should ensure is that the state of the cookie be intact while DNT is present.

We would be supportive of a revision of DNT to include the above consumer-publisher dialogue. However, we also want to make clear that the principles being adopted by the DAA and NAI, where consumers get global and local opt-out capabilities and transparency through the about ads icon offers another viable implementation of this same goal. This self-regulatory approach (we have heard industry estimates of over a trillion ads being served with this icon enabled) is already receiving wide adoption and aims to deliver on the goals of transparency and simplicity for the consumer.

DNT promises to alter the way advertising is served and needs to be transparent in its impact on both consumers and publishers. Let’s be clear and upfront on what exactly DNT is designed to do. We can start by bringing the right parties together to have a fruitful and productive conversation about the pros and cons of sponsored or free content.

LONDON – As a result of the recent “locationgate” controversy (centering on Apple’s and others’ logging of the location of mobile devices as they are used by consumers) the location-based services (LBS) and advertising (LBA) markets have come under intense scrutiny, with privacy legislation a major focus.

But according to ABI Research senior analyst Patrick Connolly, “ABI Research believes that this temporary debate will not prevent the future success of location-based services, marketing and advertising, all of which will be based on location analytics – the aggregation and analysis of location information to identify trends that will enable new services and more effective advertising.”

The firm forecasts size of the location analytics market to reach $9 billion in 2016.

At the moment, the initial LBA trials are largely focused on geofencing, with impressive results. However, the real power of LBA will come through social, geographic, physical and emotional indicators to filter advertisements to a specific user. The best way to combine these indicators and target them to individuals in a non-intrusive, anonymous way is through location analytics.

Practice director Dominique Bonte adds, “While the location analytics market is relatively new, it has been evolving for a number of years and has been the major driver for recent location-related acquisitions by the likes of Apple, Google, Nokia, Facebook and Microsoft. Eventually, location will become commoditized and will be treated as just another piece of demographic information. Consequently, location analytics will become the core provider of value in location-based advertising.”

A number of companies are already involved in this space, including PlaceIQ, Placecast, Sense networks and Skyhook Wireless/SimpleGEO, as well as the industry behemoths mentioned above.

ABI Research’s new study, “Location Analytics and Privacy” (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1007751), investigates how privacy is controlled across the ecosystem, what will be the result of recent investigations, and how companies are adapting to the future.

It is part of the firm’s Location Platforms and Enablers Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Location_Based_Services) which also includes other Research Reports, Market Data products, ABI Insights, Surveys, ABI Vendor Matrices, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 40+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. –Adconion Direct (www.adconiondirect.com), the standalone performance solutions business unit of Adconion Media Group, announced it will use TRUSTe’s OBA compliance platform to ensure brand safety and adherence to the ad privacy self-regulatory requirements. This will be done via TRUSTe’s partnership with AdXpose to deliver a best-in-class OBA compliance solution for ads in the U.S.

By partnering with TRUSTe’s TRUSTed Ads compliance platform, Adconion Direct actively seeks and employs industry best practices regarding online advertising and tracking in its quest to adhere to the high standards as outlined in the OBA self-regulatory guidelines. As the largest provider of OBA compliance services, TRUSTe offers the most recognized privacy brand, 14 years of deep privacy expertise and the most comprehensive compliance monitoring platform. This combination of capabilities will allow Adconion Direct to deliver accurate privacy notices reliably across billions of ad impressions while at the same time offering easy-to-understand privacy information and choices to consumers.

“Ad verification and delivery are an integral aspect of our business” said Brian Baumgart, President of Adconion Direct. “We are pleased to leverage TRUSTe’s OBA solution so that we can provide our advertisers and consumers alike with enhanced campaign transparency, choice and accountability.”

“We are excited to work with Adconion Direct to enable OBA compliance capabilities across their diversified and global media footprint,” said Chris Babel, CEO TRUSTe. “Our research has shown that transparency and choice can serve as powerful tools to help advertisers build deeper trust with their consumers. Through our partnership with AdXpose, we can uniquely position Adconion Direct to deliver this trust to advertisers through a blend of high quality media and the most advanced compliance and brand safety technologies.”

“We are extremely pleased that our partnership to date with Adconion Direct has blossomed,” said Ryan Polley, COO of AdXpose. “Continuing the relationship with our OBA solution further demonstrates Adconion Direct’s commitment to providing its customers with the industry’s leading technology for the verification and delivery of ad campaigns across its network.”

Adconion Direct’s partnership with AdXpose has improved the safety and performance of digital ad campaigns. AdXpose helps block suggestive keywords and prevents ads from appearing on inappropriate sites. It also provides insights and analytics that help the advertisers and agencies who work with Adconion Direct to make more informed media buying and campaign planning decisions.

About Adconion Direct
Adconion Direct (www.adconiondirect.com) is a multi-channel digital distribution platform spanning Display, Email and Social Media, for agencies and advertisers looking for quality and scalable results, backed by a global media company with significant worldwide reach. Committed to continuously deliver results, deep insights and innovative distribution options to market, Adconion Direct is an ideal performance partner of choice for agencies and advertisers alike.

Adconion Direct is the standalone performance solutions business within Adconion Media Group, (www.adconion.com), one of the largest independent global audience and video content networks, reaching nearly 325 million unique users worldwide – one-quarter of the total global Internet population. Currently, Adconion has 16 offices in 8 countries around the world. It is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), is one of the first companies to be IAB certified with its first ever Ad Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance program and is a founding member of IASH Europe.

About TRUSTe
TRUSTe is the largest provider of OBA compliance services, serving notices on more than 10 billion ad impressions per month and the leading provider of online privacy solutions with a broad suite of privacy services to help businesses build trust and increase engagement across all of their online channels – including websites, mobile applications, advertising, cloud services, business analytics and email marketing. Over 4,000 web properties including those from top companies like Apple, AT&T, Disney, eBay, Facebook, HP, Microsoft, Nationwide, Pfizer and Yelp rely on TRUSTe to ensure compliance with evolving and complex privacy requirements. TRUSTe’s mission, based on a “Truth in Privacy” framework, is built on a solid foundation of transparency, choice and accountability regarding the collection and use of personal information. TRUSTe’s privacy seal is recognized and trusted by millions of consumers as a sign of responsible privacy practices. For additional information on TRUSTe and its offerings, please visit http://www.truste.com/ads.

About AdXpose
AdXpose is the leader in digital advertising analytics solutions. The company’s SaaS technology provides advertisers and publishers with greater transparency and confidence in the quality, safety, and performance of their digital advertising campaigns. The actionable optimization metrics captured by AdXpose solutions help its customers realize increased ROI, more profitable margins, and measurable ad effectiveness. AdXpose is headquartered in Seattle, WA, with offices in New York City, and is backed by Draper Fischer Jurvetson and Ignition Partners. For more information, visit www.adxpose.com.

Adds Platform Support For Do-Not-Track Standard To Help Advertisers Adhere To New Regulations If And When They Come

NEW YORK – TagMan, the Tag Management System, has promoted Angus Glover Wilson from Director of Operations to the newly created position of Chief Privacy Officer. This, as concerns grow in the digital marketing industry about the threat of draconic measures to restrict the tracking of user preferences and behavior online.

The company, which acts as a system to house the third-party tags used to implement, manage and track online marketing campaigns, said Mr. Wilson will take the lead on helping advertisers adhere to new regulations if and when they come into force.

“Legislators in both the US and Europe are fast approaching the introduction of measures to address consumer concerns about online tracking. In Europe, a new Privacy Directive comes into force in May requiring that consumers opt in to having their online behavior tracked, though it is not yet clear how individual EU states will interpret and enact the legislation, “says Paul Cook, TagMan’s CEO. “In the US, the digital industry is working hard to head off several competing privacy initiatives by gathering together to press the cause of self-regulation. Measures on the table include all-encompassing opt-out options in web browsers and an icon on relevant campaigns offering clear information, guidelines and opt-out options for consumers.”

As VP Operations for TagMan US, a title he held since July 2010, Mr. Wilson was primarily responsible for client services activities, corporate logistics and of course privacy-related matters. Before he joined TagMan, Mr. Wilson was General Manager, UK at iVillage (including through NBC’s $600 million acquisition of iVillage Inc), and President of boutique NY digital agency dComm.

TagMan already offers its clients the ability to enable users to opt-out of all tracking and should be able to use the same technology to help them comply with new restrictions.

“The issue at the moment is about a lack of clarity. In neither the US nor Europe is it yet clear what, precisely, any new legislation will require. One interpretation of incoming legislation would be entirely unworkable while another would mean little or no change,” says Mr. Wilson. “The key for us at the moment is to gain this clarity through professional legal counsel and to ensure that we are up to date as possible so we can develop systems to help our clients and the industry as a whole comply.”

TagMan is working with several industry self-regulation initiatives and was keen to impress on legislators the realities of online tracking.

“The digital industry has done itself few favors in communicating with consumers about precisely what we do and why. That has meant we are playing catch-up in terms of the information that’s out there and the understanding that consumers and legislators have about how online tracking works, concludes Mr. Wilson. “For example, for any business to be able to record the privacy preferences of any user is, in itself, a form of online tracking that can only be enabled by cookies. Somehow we need to address consumers’ concerns in a way that doesn’t completely undermine the way the web functions.”

TagMan (www.TagMan.com) is the smart container tag for enterprise e-commerce that offers real-time attribution. By acting as a single, universal tag and interface through which tracking tags and pixels can be deployed, online marketers can save time and money in the way they implement, manage and track campaigns. TagMan goes beyond last-click by capturing the complete path to conversion of online customers and providing real-time attribution reports that alleviate discrepancies between display, CPA and PPC online advertising channels.

TagMan was founded in November 2007  with offices in New York & London. Clients include Ancestry.com, Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Allianz & Air New Zealand.  TagMan recently won the DPAC Award as the Best Advertising Analytics company as determined by peers in digital media and marketing.

Allows Site Owners to Tailor User Experiences to Their Brands & Streamline the Privacy Process

NEW YORK, NY – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, introduced a new version of its Privacy Manager as part of its OBA Compliance solution. The Privacy Manager allows consumers to set preferences for behaviorally targeted ads and lets DoubleVerify customers customize a user’s experience to match their sites’ look and feel. When consumers are served behaviorally targeted ads from DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Advertising Option Icon appears. Once users click on the Icon, the Privacy Manager launches and empowers them to either opt-out of behavioral targeting or set preferences for what information can be used for targeting. The Privacy Manager includes hundreds of companies and provides additional information on their privacy practices, in addition to an opt-out where available.

Consumers also encounter the Privacy Manager when visiting a website that uses DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution. The Privacy Manager can either be linked to the DAA’s Icon on a site or through a publisher’s privacy policy. DoubleVerify’s Privacy Manager allows websites to control the appearance of the user-facing experience to match their brand and site appearance.

“The Privacy Manager feature in our OBA product exemplifies how we support of the DAA’s Self-Regulatory program. We’re making it very simple for companies across the board — advertisers, intermediaries and publishers — to adhere to industry privacy standards for behavioral advertising so we can prove to government agencies that the online advertising industry can self regulate,” said Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify. “Because of its ease of implementation, DoubleVerify’s OBA solution helps advertisers and publishers comply with the DAA’s standards with a click of a button. It is our responsibility to provide this service to consumers and imperative that the online advertising industry increases the transparency and accountability around its practices.”

DoubleVerify’s OBA compliance solution is a one-tag technology which, for customers of verification, uses the same ad tag it uses for its suite of verification solutions, enabling advertisers and publishers to comply with industry standards simply by checking a box on the system’s interface. The solution includes the placement of the Icon, the management of the disclosure information, the link to the user privacy manager and opt-out mechanism, as well as detailed evidence and reporting on compliance.

Since being certified by the DAA to provide OBA compliance services, DoubleVerify has placed it on more than 5 billion impressions per month across numerous ad campaigns. The company is offering its OBA solution at no charge until June 2011 to speed the adoption of the DAA’s Self-Regulatory program before potential regulatory legislation from the government is passed.

Meanwhile, individual industry organizations are beginning to enforce compliance with the self-regulatory program. The DMA’s deadline for compliance was January 31, 2011. The Better Business Bureau’s March 31, 2011 deadline is fast approaching and the Interactive Advertising Bureau set a date of August 29, 2011 as part of its recent Code of Conduct initiative for members. Because of DoubleVerify’s wide reach and hassle-free implementation, its OBA Compliance solution is the fastest and easiest method of compliance with the self-regulatory program.

For more information on DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution, visit: http://www.doubleverify.com/solutions/regulatory-compliance/

About DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify (www.doubleverify.com) is the worldwide leader in online advertising verification and the top choice of marketers, agencies, ad networks and publishers looking to ensure brand safety, campaign transparency and regulatory compliance. DoubleVerify verifies over 35 billion advertising impressions per month for hundreds of leading Fortune 500 marketers. DoubleVerify is headquartered in New York City, with engineering offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Investors in DoubleVerify include Blumberg Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures.

DSP Opts for Evidon InForm – Industry’s Top Assurance Platform

NEW YORK – As yet further indication of its commitment to privacy, enterprise-class DSP MediaMath has chosen Evidon as its preferred provider of compliance services for management of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA). The agreement brings Evidon’s Assurance Platform – Evidon InForm – to MediaMath’s TerminalOne® to simplify and speed compliance with OBA principles.

Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon into display ads and Web sites, and gives consumers access to and control over how information is collected and used – while providing the option of opting out altogether.

“MediaMath has and continues to far exceed the industry standards for self-regulation and this partnership is deeper indication of our unwavering commitment to protecting consumer privacy,” said Tom Craig, MediaMath’s chief privacy officer. “Evidon’s platform gives our clients an additional crucial element in the privacy value chain – compliance with the industry’s latest privacy guidelines – and because our clients take privacy seriously, we take it seriously too.”

Evidon is the first company designated by the DAA as an approved provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for OBA. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option icon on behalf of companies that are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in more than five billion monthly advertising impressions for leading brands.

“MediaMath’s decision to work with Evidon reinforces its understanding of the importance of transparency and trust,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “DSPs are one of the fastest growing segments of the interactive media industry and having these companies advocate for industry self-regulation is a major coup for advancing the cause and preserving industry growth.”

Evidon is the leading technology company enabling online advertising transparency, in no small part through its leadership role in the Open Data Partnership (ODP). An alliance of online behavioral advertising companies, the ODP gives consumers access to and control over the information those companies have collected about their interests directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Evidon’s platform.

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

About MediaMath

Headquartered in New York City with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC in the US, and in both Canada and the UK serving EMEA, MediaMath was founded in 2007 by a seasoned team of entrepreneurs, marketers, technologists and quants. The company’s industry-leading TerminalOne® platform is the first and only enterprise-class DSP – providing an unmatched combination of supply, data, analytics, workflow automation and optimization to return focus to marketing strategy rather than media execution. MediaMath drives breakthrough results for dozens of agencies representing the world’s leading brands – including units within all 7 global agency holding companies – on thousands of worldwide campaigns. For more information visit http://www.mediamath.com/.

IRVINE, Calif. – Specific Media, a next generation media company, further demonstrated its commitment to protecting consumer privacy by becoming the first digital media company to be certified under TRUSTed Data Collection, a new certification program for third-party data collection from TRUSTe.

Unveiled on Tuesday at the OMMA Behavioral conference in New York, the TRUSTe program is expected to become a key tool for building and maintaining consumer trust in targeted advertising. The certification, which applies to Specific Media’s global network, indicates that the company’s internal privacy controls are fully compliant with TRUSTe’s standards of transparency, choice and accountability.

To achieve certification, an in-depth audit was conducted of Specific Media’s processes, including data collection, data retention, user choice options, privacy statement and use of third-party data. According to TRUSTe research, most consumers are receptive to relevant, targeted advertising, as long as they are informed of their choices and can be sure that their personal data is being respected.

Specific Media is a signatory to the IAB Good Practice Principles, and a member of NAI and IASH. The media company is an early-adopter of the DAA’s Ad Choices program, being the first to implement the Advertising Option Icon across its entire network to empower consumers with greater control over the advertising that they receive. Specific Media is also a member of the IAB Leadership Council who, in conjunction with the EASA, is working toward introducing the Ad Choices program in Europe — a further testament to Specific Media’s proactive approach toward privacy.

“TRUSTe compliance is a continuation of our efforts to develop and embody best practices for the industry, enabling us to provide an even higher level of transparency to both consumers and advertisers,” said Tim Vanderhook, co-founder and CEO, Specific Media. “By becoming the first digital media company to be certified through TRUSTed Data Collection, we are strengthening our commitment to consumer privacy protection and helping drive forward industry standards in privacy compliance.”

About Specific Media

Specific Media is a next generation media platform company that enables brands to seamlessly connect with consumers no matter where they are. Working across formats and screens, Specific Media makes addressable advertising a reality. Specific Media’s suite of products inspire brands to think differently about their marketing initiatives – combining formats such as video and display and incorporating creative original programming to drive deep engagement and loyalty. As consumers discover new ways to consume content in the digital era, Specific Media will make sure your brand reaches them in the ways they desire. Get – and stay – connected at Specific Media.

About TRUSTe

Thousands of companies rely on TRUSTe’s leading privacy trustmark to enhance consumer trust, drive increased registrations and transactions, and comply with complex privacy requirements. Consumers know that when they see the TRUSTe seal, they can “Click with Confidence” because the certified website is responsible with their personal information. TRUSTe has certified more than 40 percent of the top fifty websites, including Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, AOL, Adobe, AT&T, Comcast, Disney, Weather.com, Apple, LinkedIn, Web MD, and Yelp. TRUSTe also certifies many of the top advertising and technology service providers for websites. For additional information on TRUSTe and its services, please visit http://www.truste.com.

Paves the Way for Facebook ROI Monitoring by Launching the Market’s First Ever Solution for Measuring the Impact of Fans

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France – How much does recruiting Facebook fans really cost? What real benefits can a business gain from it? What is the true value of a fan over time? These are just a few of many legitimate questions that until now were difficult or impossible to answer. Reactivpub has transformed the measurement of Facebook ROI by launching the first solution for monitoring the performance of Facebook fans.

For any business or advertiser, the interest to be present on a social network such as Facebook lies primarily in the recruitment of fans who are, in essence, hot prospects or loyal customers with a real influence on the brand. But what company ever dreamed it would be possible to analyze the effectiveness of its Facebook fan recruitment with its existing acquisition with a single solution? How many advertisers have ever wished they could measure the actual profit attributed to its presence on Facebook? For the first time ever, Reactivpub makes this all possible and allows the recruitment of Facebook fans to become an easily measurable customer acquisition and retention mechanism directly comparable with other online recruitment tools (emailing, coregistration, media campaigns, quizzes, etc.). This innovation is based on the R-Tracking tracking technology built into Reactivpub, which assigns a unique identifier (or RUID) to any user exposed to an advertising message, whatever the delivery medium – website, emailing, or social media. Just like a genetic marker, the RUID not only enables the identification of new fans of a given brand or advertiser in the same way as with classic recruitment, but it also tracks their value over time.

For brands, the prospects are enormous. For example, for acquisition purposes, Reactivpub uses membership as leverage for fan recruitment by offering a pay per performance compensation, the CPF (Cost Per Fan) advertising model in addition to the more conventional CPL (Cost Per Lead), CPS (Cost Per Sale), CPC (Cost Per Click) and CPM (cost per thousand views) models. With over 500 million Facebook users worldwide and a penetration rate in France that surpasses 30%*, the CPF offers tremendous potential for recruiting loyal prospects for a brand, which is characterized by a strong recommendation power (more than one person out of two is more inclined to buy a branded product or to visit a specific store if one of his friends is a fan of that brand or store). Moreover, as opposed to a qualified email address, the fan does not incur any additional operating costs, like routing fees for example. The CPF could very well in fact herald the dawn of a revolution in online recruitment methods.

Last but not least, among other benefits, Reactivpub also enables brands to measure the actual conversion (generated sales, registrations, traffic) from fans recruited on the Reactivpub network and monitoring installation of Facebook applications and impact on conversions. So many possibilities for developing a real Social Shopping strategy.

* Source:Facebook.

About Reactivpub
Reactivpub, the leading affiliate network in France and throughout Europe, is a global solution for performance marketing and a technology allowing advertisers and agencies to maximise the ROI of their online marketing efforts and enabling publishers to increase the yield of their advertising inventory. An expert of ROI and multichannel online acquisition, Reactivpub reaches more than 35 million* unique visitors in Europe and provides on-going innovations for its clients through new acquisition and tracking technology.
Reactivpub is a division of “R”, Europe’s performance marketing specialist.

www.reactivpub.com – presse@r-advertising.com

* Source : Reactivpub november 2010

About “R”
R designs innovative performance marketing solutions which allow companies to boost the sales of their products and services online, providing them with the interactive tools they need to scale their online business. R’s global expertise is grounded on his knowledge and experience within the main sectors of online marketing :

Performance marketing
Behavioral email marketing
Worldwide traffic sources
Websites, Optin databases, social media marketing
SaaS technology
This strategy is backed by the awarding of certifications and labels (Sender Score, Surety Mail, Yahoo Third Party Ad Server) that highlight the quality of R products and services and strengthen a lasting relationship with partners.

- Evidon, the Only Company Deploying Industry-Wide Compliance Solutions at Scale, Demonstrates Leadership Role in Comments to FTC and Thought Leadership IAB’s Blog
- Call to Action Highlights Key Advantages for Companies Employing OBA to “Get with the Program” as Brands begin to Realize Benefits from Closer Consumer Engagements

NEW YORK – As confusion reigns and misinformation pervades the airwaves, one of the more complicated issues of our day seems all too close to slipping from the grasp of the interactive media industry’s control. In the past 30 days, as Do Not Track (DNT) proposals have reached a crescendo, the stakes for both the industry and the consumer have followed suit.

Many DNT proposals strike at the core of how web content is delivered, optimized, and funded. These would have a highly disruptive impact on medium to small web publishers and the marketers who depend on them. While many influential parties are supportive of DNT, they all define the concept differently. Does DNT address the consumer need? And how are the DNT debates shaping industry views, let alone consumer views of the self-regulatory program?

These and other questions were posed by Evidon’s founders in comments to the U.S. Federal Commission on the FTC’s preliminary report on a proposed framework for consumer privacy, and to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which solicited comments to its blog from Evidon to address the industry directly.

Evidon’s FTC Comments are available here: http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/privacyreportframework/00391.html

Evidon’s IAB Comments are available here: http://www.iab.net/iablog/2011/02/self-regulation-solves-the-do-.html

“The fact is that consumers have enjoyed multiple, free, Do Not Track mechanisms at their fingertips for years,” said Colin O’Malley, Co-Founder & VP of Business Development and Policy for Evidon and member of the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee and Public Policy Council. “It seems that pretty much everyone following the online privacy issue, and even offline consumer data-related privacy issues, believes that the commercial market has a role to play and is looking to leaders on privacy to make clear what he best practices are now.

“The FTC has made it clear that providing consumers with clear notice and simplified choice are key components of their proposed data privacy framework,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon in his comments to the FTC. “Evidon’s Assurance Platform is a proven, effective means for meeting these goals. Information presented through the platform enables consumers to make informed and meaningful decisions about data collection and use. Relying on a Do Not Track mechanism will limit consumer transparency, control and innovation in empowering consumer privacy in a vibrant online advertising market.”

The Evidon platform that has been operating at scale since last summer is comprised of three components:

- A transparency component that notifies a consumer viewing an ad that the advertisement was delivered using online behavioral data and identifies the data providers involved in its delivery;
- A choice component that provides consumers choice, namely, an easy method for consumers to opt-out of the collection or use of behavioral information on a company-by-company basis; and
- A reporting tool that provides the advertising agency, advertiser, or network insight into consumers’ interaction with the platform and evidence of compliance with self- regulatory principles.

“We’re in the midst of a golden age of innovation in privacy technologies,” said O’Malley in his IAB.net commentary. “Consumers that are so inclined have a growing array of tools to manage their privacy online.”

Indeed, consumer-empowering tools range from the aggressive and technical (NoScript, Adblock Plus), to the simple and ad industry friendly (NAI/AboutAds.info opt-out page, Facebook privacy settings), with many options in between (Ghostery, which Evidon operates; TrackerBlock, etc.) Each of these tools approaches the policy, technology, and larger political conversation differently, which represents even deeper consumer choice. Privacy requires the active management of trade-offs in every case, as the quid-pro-quo of consumer relationships with media companies increasingly tilts toward the consumer.

Brands Buying Into the Program

“Many of our clients are choosing to present consumers with the icon, including notice and choice tools, on advertising campaigns and web pages that don’t even have an OBA component,” said Meyer. “Brands understand that consumers have more choices – more power – online than they do offline, and that the expression of transparency through the Advertising Option Icon is just part of the conversation that is available with them online. All along, we’ve felt that the industry’s self compliance efforts should be regarded as a carrot, not a stick – that this will improve brands’ relationships with consumers, and vice-versa. Now that we’re approaching 15 billion impressions served, the proof is as clear as the choice that consumers are making.”

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate Evidon results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

Half Who Object to Online Tracking Reconsider After Understanding Value Propositions in New PubMatic White Paper, Audience Selling For Publishers

Palo Alto, CA – PubMatic, which provides online publishers — including the majority of the comScore Top 10 — with the technology and services to significantly increase revenue and better manage their advertising inventory, today announced that a study contained in a new white paper, Audience Selling for Publishers reveals that when consumers are presented with a more comprehensive explanation of advertising-based data tracking, they are less concerned about targeted advertising using their anonymous data.  The white paper, which is one of a two-part series, helps publishers better sell audience-based advertising.

After observing that other studies with user opinions about anonymous data being used for online advertising were incomplete at best and misleading at worst, PubMatic commissioned an independent online research firm, Knowledge Networks, to conduct a survey of 500 U.S. Internet users.  The users were asked their opinions about audience-based online advertising in three key stages:  before understanding how anonymous data is collected, after understanding how anonymous data is collected, and after understanding the benefits for that anonymous data collection.  The study was conducted in early 2011 and included a representative, random sample of individuals that categorized themselves as “Internet users.”

Among the study findings in the white paper, Audience Selling for Publishers:

Unless you tell them, users don’t understand that the 3rd party data used for interest-based advertising is anonymous. For example, when the survey participants were asked if they knew that some of their online behavior might be tracked about them for the purpose of advertising, 71% acknowledged they knew. But when asked if they knew the online data collected about them for the purpose of advertising was anonymous, only 40% understood it was anonymous.

Users are far more accepting of interest-based advertising when they understand that 3rd party data is anonymous. The more users understand the benefits associated with audience-based advertising, the more they are supportive of it. When asked without an understanding that only anonymous data is used for audience-based advertising, 64% disapproved. However, when asked after understanding that only anonymous data is used for interest-based advertising, 40% of those who had disapproved changed their mind and approved.

When the survey participants understood that the data collection was anonymous  they understood the benefits included more relevant advertising AND that it helped subsidize free content, 53% changed their minds and approved.

According to the PubMatic / Knowledge Networks study, when U.S. Internet users understand the value trade-offs for anonymous browsing behavior tracking – specifically more relevant advertising and access to free content – they are much more supportive of it.

“The Internet user, the online publisher audience, is the center of our data-driven advertising ecosystem  and their privacy is paramount.  Whether it is through self-regulation or legislation, when given a choice about anonymous tracking, Internet users deserve to have all the facts about how it works and the benefits they derive from it before making a decision,” says PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel. “Once they are appropriately armed with this information, they should have the means at their disposal to easily implement a ‘do-not-track’ option if they prefer to, or not to.”

The full study within Audience Selling for Publishers can be downloaded at http://www.PubMatic.com/AudienceSelling.

PubMatic: (http://www.pubmatic.com) PubMatic’s Sell Side Platform provides premium publishers one platform with the technology and services needed to earn the most ad revenue possible while protecting their brands online. Some of the world’s most respected publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, MSNBC, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

PubMatic is privately held, backed by funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Clickable tool provides web surfers a simple way to make informed decisions about how data is collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes

IRVINE, Calif. – Specific Media, a next generation media platform company, announced it will be the first Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) member to begin integrating the Advertising Option Icon across all online display ads distributed by the organization, effective immediately. The Advertising Option Icon is a straightforward, easy-to-use tool that empowers consumers to make informed choices about online privacy while working to enrich their Internet experience. Specific Media is currently working with PreferenceCentral, a consumer privacy and empowerment solution company, to deploy the Advertising Option Icon.

“Transparency is essential to our clients and their customers. Incorporating the Advertising Option Icon across all of the display ads we distribute marks a proactive step in helping consumers gain a better understanding of how data is collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes,” said Tim Vanderhook, CEO of Specific Media. “By implementing consumer-friendly principles and standards, we are enabling consumers to make more informed choices on the web, and helping to strengthen relationships between brands and their customers.”

The Advertising Option Program was initiated by IAB to provide consumers with a better understanding and more control over ads that are served to them based on their online behavior. By clicking on an icon within or around an ad unit, consumers can link to a disclosure statement regarding the data collection and usage practices associated with that ad; users can also opt to stop receiving behaviorally targeted ads from the company in the future.

Specific Media was recently recognized by DoubleVerify, a pioneer in online media verification, for being one of the highest rated networks in online ad delivery and compliance. In recent months, Specific Media successfully market tested the new Advertising Option Icon on behalf of several industry-leading clients including MasterCard, Zales, Electronic Arts, and high-end watchmaker Breitling.

“Transparency is at the forefront of today’s online advertising landscape, as industry leaders come to understand the significance of giving consumers choice and control over the ads they are served,” said Jeffrey Katz, GM, PreferenceCentral, which enables consumers to manage their advertising preferences across the web. “Specific Media is helping lead the way by implementing the Advertising Option Icon across its platform and setting a precedent for other media companies.”

About Specific Media

Specific Media is a next generation media platform company that enables brands to seamlessly connect with consumers no matter where they are. Working across formats and screens, Specific Media makes addressable advertising a reality. Specific Media’s suite of products inspire brands to think differently about their marketing initiatives – combining formats such as video and display and incorporating creative original programming to drive deep engagement and loyalty. As consumers discover new ways to consume content in the digital era, Specific Media will make sure your brand reaches them in the ways they desire. Get – and stay – connected at Specific Media.

More Than One-Third of Men Wouldn’t Mind Trading Non-Personal Information for Ads More Relevant to Their Interests

BURLINGTON, Mass. – Burst Media, (www.BurstMedia.com), a leading seller of targeted Internet audiences to brand and performance advertisers, released the results of a consumer sentiment survey on Internet privacy and dynamic ads – ads tailored for the individual viewer based on a profile or past web surfing behavior. Administered in late November to more than 1,600 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older, the online survey found the majority (78.2%) of respondents recall seeing online ads that appeared to be tailored to them based on a previous visit to the advertiser website. One-third (34.2%) of respondents who recall seeing a dynamic ad say they dislike them while one-quarter (27.7%) say they like them, and 38.1% had no opinion.

Among respondents who dislike dynamic ads, the reason most often cited for their negative feelings is that the ads are “annoying and distracting” (54.9%). Other reasons cited include: ads usually feature a product the user is not interested in (38.2%), ads infringe on privacy (33.4%) and ads follow the user around the web (27.5%). The study also found considerable differences between age segments and perceptions of dynamic ads: one-third (35.2%) of respondents aged 18-34 years “like” dynamic ads compared to one-quarter (25.1%) of respondents aged 35-54 years and 16.7% of respondents 55 or older.

For the most part, dynamic ads have little impact on a consumer’s opinion about the specific company and/or product being advertised. Overall, only 17.4% of respondents say they have a better impression of the company or product as a result of seeing a dynamic ad after a previous visit to the advertiser’s website, and 10.9% have a worse opinion. Interestingly, men are significantly more likely than women (23.2% vs. 11.6%) to have a better impression of a company or product after seeing an ad tailored to them based on a previous visit to the advertiser’s website.

Surprisingly, more than one-quarter (28.4%) of respondents say they would not mind if a website tracked and stored non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) if it meant they would see advertising more relevant to their interests. Nearly one-half (47.9%) of respondents say they object. Men are much more likely than women to approve of a website using non-PII for targeting purposes: 37.3% vs. 19.8%.

“With ubiquitous media coverage and government attention towards Internet privacy and security, consumers are more aware than ever that what they do online may be tracked in one form or another,” said David Stein, Chief Technology Officer at Burst Media. “Online advertisers can respond by ensuring their messages are relevant to their target audience. When a consumer sees an advertising message at the right place, at the right time and in the most relevant context, brands are best positioned to instill trust and action. Equally, web publishers must commit to consumer privacy and make certain a fully-fleshed out privacy policy is current and relevant to the needs of the audience.”

About Burst Media

An online media and technology company founded in 1995, Burst Media (www.BurstMedia.com) is a leading seller of vertically targeted audiences found in the long tail of the Internet. By working together with web publishers and advertisers, the company leverages the value of rich long tail content to enable brands to reach loyal, highly segmented audiences in a brand-safe and quality-assured environment. Through its media divisions Burst Network, Burst Direct and Giant Realm, the company represents one of the broadest and deepest offerings of interest-based websites. Burst also markets its ad management platform, adConductor™, which empowers content websites, online ad networks and web portals to manage the complete process of ad sales and service. Burst Media is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the United States and in London. For more information, visit www.BurstMedia.com or call 781.272.5544.

Award recognizes Sprint’s new opt-out service, allowing customers a choice in the use of their anonymized data to provide relevant ads

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Sprint (NYSE:S) continues to receive accolades for the value and service it provides customers. Now Frost & Sullivan has awarded Sprint the 2010 North American Customer Value Enhancement of the Year Award in On-deck Mobile Advertising.

Based on Frost & Sullivan’s independent analysis of the Mobile Advertising market, the award recognizes the strategic advantages of Sprint’s mobile advertising service:

- Customer relevancy and privacy, including an opt-out service, in which customers are given clear choices around receiving targeted ads
- Open approach
- Strategic roadmap

“Sprint has been a pioneer in mobile advertising, delivering effective advertising options for brands while protecting our customers’ privacy,” said Mathew Oommen, vice president-Product and Technology Development for Sprint. “Our opt-out service for customers and our ad-mediation platform, which allows us to partner with additional ad networks, are two of our latest examples of that. We’re pleased to be recognized by Frost & Sullivan for the value our mobile advertising service provides.”

“Sprint has clearly demonstrated its ability to add value to the mobile advertising experience to help deliver the right ads to the right user at the right time,” said Vikrant Gandhi, senior industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “Sprint recently introduced an opt-out service for mobile advertising, which Frost & Sullivan feels is a highly differentiating approach that will continue to support Sprint’s industry-leading, on-deck mobile advertising performance. This award recognizes Sprint’s continued focus on both ends of the spectrum: maintaining customer privacy and relevancy and expanding its mobile advertising offerings to deliver tangible value to advertising customers, publisher partners and, ultimately, Sprint customers.”

Customer Relevancy

Ad relevancy and customer privacy have been the core focus of Sprint’s mobile advertising service. As part of its ongoing efforts to work closely with its customer base and serve the most relevant ads, Sprint recently introduced an opt-out service for mobile advertising that enables customers easy access to provide their choice in delivering any sort of targeted ads. In addition, Sprint customers can specify their interests as well as convey their preference for “family-friendly” ads.

Open Approach

Sprint has established several strategic relationships with mobile advertising solution providers. Sprint has implemented a robust ad-mediation platform, which enables a more open approach in partnering with additional ad networks and enhances the ability to provide relevant ad content. This allows the “best” ad to be served to Sprint’s customers in real time. As a result, advertisers on Sprint’s mobile advertising network consistently achieve higher than average performance for their mobile advertising and mobile marketing campaigns.

Strategic Roadmap

Sprint has helped define and develop the on-deck mobile advertising ecosystem in the United States and continues to evolve its offerings. On-deck advertising refers to the mobile ads displayed at the top and bottom of Sprint-branded mobile Web pages. Sprint’s mobile advertising service enables marketers and advertisers to reach millions of wireless data subscribers through strategically targeted mobile Web-based advertising programs while protecting customer privacy. It offers several interactive ad mechanics, including click to call, click to promotion, and click to locate, that encourage effective user engagement and provide quantifiable results. Several innovative and high-performance mobile advertising campaigns have been completed with leading brands and mobile application partners across Sprint’s on-deck mobile advertising inventory.

Advantages of Sprint’s mobile advertising service include:

Scale – Sprint’s mobile advertising network offers the industry’s best reach and frequency, with one of the highest metrics for impressions and unique visitors.
Large inventory – Sprint is a market leader in mobile data services, and wireless Internet usage among Sprint subscribers is one of the highest in the United States. This ensures a sizeable, marketable subscriber base for advertisers.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 48.8 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2010 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, Common Cents Mobile and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Newsweek ranked Sprint No. 6 in its 2010 Green Rankings, listing it as one of the nation’s greenest companies, the highest of any telecommunications company. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.

Launch Partners Include: 33Across, Bizo, BlueKai, Demdex, eXelate, Lotame, SafeCount, and Turn
Program’s Technology will Enhance Consumers’ Transparency into and Control over their Online Data

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) announced an unprecedented partnership toward launching a program that extends consumer notice and choice deep beyond the browser to companies collecting anonymous behavioral information online. The Open Data Partnership (ODP) will provide consumers with full transparency into this data and enable them to edit their information or opt out completely from any participating company’s cookie. Consumers will be able to gain access to and edit their information directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform – already in wide use by leading advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers – rather than needing to visit each company’s site individually.

The announcement was first covered in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704377004575650802136721966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Companies initially participating in the partnership include: 33Across, Bizo, BlueKai, Demdex, eXelate, Lotame, SafeCount and Turn. None of these companies sells, distributes, or otherwise traffics in personally identifiable information (PII), and no PII will be accessible as part of the program. In accordance with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the Principles) announced by the Digital Advertising Alliance in July, 2009, participating companies have agreed to integrate their information into the Better Advertising notice experience, enabling Better Advertising to provide a single, easy-to-use portal for consumers across all participating companies.

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership is exactly the kind of initiative that will enable us to remain self-regulated as an industry,” said Mike Zaneis, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). “The more transparency we can provide consumers that enables them to retain control over their own data, the more trusted our ecosystem becomes – to the benefit of everyone.”

“As the world’s largest auction marketplace for audience data and pioneer of consumer transparency tools such as the BlueKai Registry, we are staunch supporters of preserving consumer privacy and happy to participate in the Open Data Partnership,” said Omar Tawakol, BlueKai CEO. “Ensuring consumer choice and visibility continues to be a core tenet of our business and we fully support Better Advertising’s initiative to give web users the ability to update their privacy preferences in one place.”

Open Data Partnership companies will provide Better Advertising with access to information on what they collect and maintain about how each unique consumer browser is identified within their systems. This will include whether or not an active targeting or opt-out cookie is present on that particular web browser, and what information – if any – has been collected. Better Advertising will make this data available to consumers through its industry-leading Assurance Platform, which is the first and currently only platform endorsed by the Digital Advertising Alliance as a standard method for providing evidence of compliance with the Principles. Better Advertising, however, will not collect, hold or use any of this data.

“What we at Lotame and other companies in our space do with regard to data collection is so misunderstood, and is far more benign than some reports would have consumers think,” said Andy Monfried, Lotame CEO. “We’re happy to do all we can as a company to engender the kind of transparency that the Open Data Partnership provides toward enabling consumers not only to better understand, but also to have complete control of their online data. And we fully support both Better Advertising and the Principles.”

“Since introducing the first Data Exchange, we’ve always provided consumers with clear choice and control,” said Meir Zohar, the CEO and founder of eXelate. “We’ve been at the vanguard of this segment and built a sustainable business with dozens of trusted partners, all without compromising user privacy in any way. So, we regard our participation in the Open Data Partnership as a natural step and we’re proud to be a part of it.”

Better Advertising is the first Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles) of the Digital Advertising Alliance. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering notice with billions of advertising impressions across the internet for leading brands.

“We’re proud to be working with Better Advertising and the other companies in the Open Data Partnership program. This program follows our privacy centric-approach with all of our clients and is a natural extension of our own initiative, www.donottarget.com,” said Randy Nicolau, CEO of Demdex. “The audience data market is complicated enough for those of us participating in it. I think it’s all too easy for people in our business to lose sight of what’s at stake for consumers who obviously deserve a simplified process controlling their data.”

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership effort is a tremendous step in the right direction for the industry,” said Stuart P. Ingis, Counsel to the DAA and a Partner at Venable, LLP in Washington, who led the crafting of the Self-Regulatory Principles. “To consumers, meaningful self-regulation will require this kind of transparency, which complements the education program that the industry has undertaken.”

“As a leading data-driven advertising platform, Turn takes privacy protection very seriously and is committed to keeping consumers in complete control of their personal data,” said Xuhui Shao, Chief Technology Officer at Turn. “Better Advertising’s initiative encourages all players in the ecosystem to provide the highest level of transparency, adhere to stringent self regulation to address consumer anxiety and foster trust in digital advertising channels.”

“Joining the Open Data Partnership supports the tenets that Bizo was built on: transparency, targeting and helping publishers and marketers thrive online,” said Russell Glass CEO of Bizo. “In the B2B world, marketers need to know that the companies they work with are serious about online privacy and transparency. Initiatives like this are the best way to ensure the sustainability of our industry for the long run.”

“We salute our Open Data Partners for collaborating with us to empower the consumer and adhering to best practices in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem,” said Scott Meyer, CEO and founder of Better Advertising. “We look forward to working cooperatively with these and other companies to deliver on the promise of the Open Data Partnership as well as on full industry implementation of the Self-Regulatory Principles.”

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

Notes on the DAA and the Industry Self-Regulatory Program

Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations: the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and he Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers. The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

“Online Behavioral Advertising Self-Regulation: What Your Company Needs to Know” will be Presented Live on Thursday, December 16, 2010, at 1:30 ET

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) announced that they will conduct a free webinar for the industry and interested parties on the ongoing self-regulatory efforts being spearheaded by the DAA.

Any companies who are members of the ANA, 4A’s, AAF, DMA and IAB need to implement the Advertising Option Icon quickly to be compliant with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising that launched in October. The webinar, hosted by Better Advertising, the only company designated as an approved provider of compliance services by the DAA, will better acquaint companies in the digital ecosystem with what they need to do to align with the program.

In the wake of the recent FTC report and comments by Commissioner John Leibowitz that our industry needs to accelerate its adoption of self-regulatory guidelines, it is clear that complying with the program has never been more urgent.

Title:          Online Behavioral Advertising Self-Regulation: What Your Company Needs to Know
When:         Thursday, December 16, 2010, 1:30-2:30 PM ET
Where:        The Webinar will be available only for registered participants. Go to: http://selfreg.eventbrite.com to register.
Presenting:        Stu Ingis, Partner, Venable and Counsel to DAA; Scott Meyer and Colin O’Malley, Better Advertising

To help your company get up to speed on compliance, and hear how consumers are reacting to the program so far, please join this free webinar. Stu Ingis will discuss program requirements for advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers. Scott Meyer and Colin O’Malley will review the results of Better Advertising’s recent research which shows the power of a robust ad notice experience. This research, conducted in partnership with Dynamic Logic, demonstrates that a strong majority of consumers not only want details on the companies that are behind the ads they see, but actually feel better about brands that give them a high degree of control over those ads. The Better Advertising team will also introduce its new Open Data Partnership program that was featured in the Wall Street Journal last week.

This is a free webinar presented by the Digital Advertising Alliance and Better Advertising.

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

Notes on the DAA and the Industry Self-Regulatory Program

Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations: the American Association of Advertising Agencies(4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and he Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers. The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

Proprietary Auto Shopper Data Drives First Ever Real-Time Precision Targeting for Automakers

IRVINE, Calif. & NEW YORK – Autobytel (Nasdaq: ABTL), a consumer facing network of automotive shopping websites and Aperture, a leading provider of online audience measurement, planning and performance verification solutions, announced a groundbreaking partnership and integrated toolset that will offer automotive brands and content publishers unique insights and applications for marketing campaigns. The integration of Autobytel’s unparalleled auto-intender market data with Aperture’s real-time, “privacy-centric” household-level online consumer analytics will give automakers and publishers the opportunity to better understand the intent and profile of prospective car and truck buyers throughout the purchase funnel.

Jim Helberg, EVP Product, Marketing & Analytics for Autobytel Inc., stated that this suite of tools will allow brands to translate actual consumer shopping and media behavior insights into real-time campaign optimization rather than relying upon traditionally self-reported, historical survey or cookie data. Helberg added, “We chose to integrate with Aperture to launch this offering because we believe the methodology at the core of the Aperture audience data platform is quickly becoming the industry standard for measuring individual and household demographics, psychographics and purchase behavior.”

“Until now, the majority of automotive brands have targeted automotive buying audiences based on limited information,” Scott Knoll, General Manager for Aperture emphasized. “Our new measurement solutions provide a competitive advantage by enabling brands to optimize campaigns based on discrete audience understandings that simply cannot be revealed by limited, inferred data. In a tougher than ever auto market, the ability for automakers to optimize campaigns and or place them in precisely the right area of a publisher’s website, will separate the winners from the losers. In developing these tools, we recognized Autobytel as the industry leader in automotive consumer intender purchase information requests. They were the obvious partner.”

About Aperture

Aperture, a Datran Media company, is an award-winning, unique audience data platform that combines household-level data with online consumer behavior to help advertisers accurately identify, reach and measure online target audiences. Aperture modules include Audience Discovery, Audience Finder, Audience Reach and Audience ROI. The world’s largest advertising agencies and global brands depend on Aperture to connect unique consumer audiences with the compelling content, products and services they desire.

About Autobytel Inc. (www.autobytel.com)

Autobytel Inc., an online leader offering consumer purchase requests and marketing resources to car dealers and manufacturers and providing consumers with the information they need to purchase new and used cars, pioneered the automotive Internet when it launched autobytel.com in 1995. Today, the company is continuing to offer innovative products and services to help consumers buy, and auto dealers and manufacturers sell more used and new cars. Autobytel has helped tens of millions of automotive consumers research vehicles; connected thousands of dealers nationwide with motivated car buyers; and helped every major automaker market its brand online. Through its flagship website Autobytel.com®, its network of automotive sites, including Autotropolis.com®, Autoweb.com®, AutoSite.com®, Car.comsm, CarSmart.com®, CarTV.com®, and MyRide.com® and its respected online partners, Autobytel continues its dedication to innovating the industry’s highest quality Internet programs to provide consumers with a comprehensive and positive automotive research and purchasing experience, and auto dealers, dealer groups and auto manufacturers with one of the industry’s most productive and cost-effective customer referral and marketing programs.

First Product of Its Kind Will Combat Billion-Dollar Problem

PALO ALTO, Calif. – PubMatic, which provides online publishers — including the majority of the comScore Top 10 — with the technology and services to significantly increase revenue and better manage their advertising inventory, launched its Data Firewall product for publishers. For the first time, publishers will get visibility into 3rd party companies that are tracking the publisher’s audience via pixels or cookies and causing data leakage.

Data leakage occurs when 3rd parties track a publisher’s audience without the knowledge of the publisher, a problem that has grown considerably in the past year. PubMatic estimates that data leakage is costing publishers up to $1 billion annually in lost revenue.

PubMatic’s Data Firewall is unique in that it is the first product in the market that gives publishers transparency into data leakage and at the same time allows them to see which 3rd parties are producing the highest ad revenue for the publishers. This will allow publishers to evaluate the value of those 3rd party relationships.

The use of publisher data by 3rd parties in order to increase the value of the media they are selling independently of the publisher is a fast-growing practice and can cost the publisher significant revenue losses. Data Firewall will help publishers decide how much data collection from 3rd parties is too much.

“Data Firewall is another impressive step toward giving publishers more control over their advertising inventory,” says Jared Friedman, CTO at Scribd, a publisher partner of PubMatic. “With Data Firewall we can take our industry leading stance on consumer privacy to the next level by ensuring our users’ privacy is protected while continuing to allow many advertisers to run ads on our site.”

“Privacy is not only important to consumers, but it is also of paramount importance to publishers,” says Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic. “Data Firewall is the world’s first publisher-centric tool that provides publishers with the ability to clearly see who is dropping pixels on their websites, and take appropriate action.”

As part of the Premier platform, PubMatic’s large base of premium publishers will be able to leverage Data Firewall through PubMatic’s consolidated dashboard.

PubMatic’s (http://www.PubMatic.com) ad management technology combines an impression-level ad auction, the most comprehensive brand protection tools, and enterprise ad operations support to give the Web’s top publishers the most control over their revenue and brand. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

PubMatic is privately held, backed by funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

DUBLIN – Research and Markets has announced the addition of eMarketer’s new report “Brand Interactions on Social Networks” to their offering.

The social networking audience in the US has reached critical mass. Marketers have been chasing this all-important audience for several years, using banner ads, branded pages, homepage takeovers, targeted text ads and search keyword buys. Whether consumers notice, or care, has been a big question in social media marketing.

The answer is yes, with a catch. Social network users are willing to join branded company pages, comment on marketers posts and share their opinions about products and services. Some ad formats are also showing positive response.

But the issues of how the social networks and marketers use the information they glean about consumers, and how much they guard the privacy and security of social network members, remain unresolved.

Key questions this report answers:

How are consumers using social networks to share information about the brands they like?
Are consumers doing product research on social networks?
Why do people interact with or like brands on social networks?
Are social network users aware of how their personal information is used for marketing? Do they care?

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary
Key Questions
The Emarketer View
The Era Of Open Sharing
Social Networks As Research Sources
Why Consumers Make Friends With Brands
Coupons Drive Brand Interactions
The Murky Waters Of Privacy
Conclusions
Endnotes
Related Information And Links

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8f8f85/brand_interactions.

- Industry’s First Data Rights Management Platform™ for Marketers and Publishers to Control their Most Important Asset – their Data
- Technology to Control Partner Tracking Tags, Protect Against Data Leakage and Transparently Facilitate the Monetization of First Party Data

Chicago, IL – BrightTag™ publicly announced the launch of their company, which provides a data sharing solution that simplifies and streamlines the growing complexity and increasing difficulty of managing tracking tags and data transmission to third parties.  BrightTag’s platform enables website owners and their agencies to control, protect and monetize their most valuable resource, their data.

Every website owner today – ecommerce companies, publishers, social networks – all are feeling the effects of data leakage and it’s simply too hard to work with third party partners, no matter how trusted these partners are.  Browsers are filled with tracking tags, IT departments are burdened with manual processes and marketing and ops teams are at their wits’ end.  BrightTag has introduced a new way to help website owners manage the valuable data that drives their business online. With BrightTag, website owners and agencies can work with marketing partners in minutes without ever bothering IT, and more importantly, control what data is shared with each partner.

“We’ve been watching the development of BrightTag’s technology for nearly a year now, and feel confident that they are solving a problem that our industry needs solved now as the data markets are poised to explode,” said Sean Cheyney, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, AccuQuote.  “The time-savings and opportunity to innovate their technology provides is incredible.  My team can enable a new marketing partner in less than five minutes, but more importantly we can now manage our ownership of data.  That’s where BrightTag’s technology really excels.”

As media, creative, analytics, and related technologies continue to fragment, the cost, time, complexity, and risk of distributing data to hundreds of potential partners has risen exponentially. BrightTag enables website owners to replace the chaos and time delays of data integration with a single durable BrightTag that gives them unbiased and trusted control, while ensuring that media buyers won’t experience similar value diminishment from their campaigns.

“Today, revenue, data and privacy are more intertwined than ever, forcing website owners to find a way to gain control,” said Mike Sands, former CMO and COO of Orbitz and now BrightTag’s CEO.  “Many marketers and publishers have no idea how many different kinds of data aggregation occur on nearly every site, including top 50 sites.  The less control that website owners maintain from all the companies who touch their site, the less value they’ll retain.  That’s where we come in, with technology that helps website owners manage the data they own to help retain its value.”

Company founder and Chief Revenue Officer, Marc Kiven, a member of the Atlas DMT founding executive team, former SVP of Corporate Development at Right Media and co-founder and COO of Centro, set out to build BrightTag with the realization that the process of data sharing through “tracking tags” had not progressed beyond the early days of ad serving.  With the recognition that the market was lacking an effective solution to help website owners better manage the high volume of tracking tags necessary to do advanced targeting, BrightTag soon moved from the development of a simple container tag with its beta partners to the industry’s first Data Distribution Server™.

Optimizing tag management and creating new more robust and trusted measures for data sharing eliminates operational headaches, creates efficiencies, and increases ad revenue and other monetization opportunities for publishers while benefiting marketers by reducing friction in the interactive media ecosystem.  By establishing a common foundation for normalized metadata, BrightTag creates a triangle of benefit for buyers, sellers, and consumers.

Beyond its core management team of Sands, Kiven and Eric Lunt, BrightTag’s CTO and former co founder and CTO of Feedburner (GOOG), industry veteran adviser Scott Lipsky, former founder and CTO of Avenue A | Razorfish and Atlas DMT and Joe Doran, former chief of staff at MSN and former CEO of Media6Degrees are among the many industry leaders helping BrightTag create a new standard for improved data sharing practices.

“The reception we’ve seen from the market has been exhilarating,” said Sands.  “We believe there is a role for a trusted and unbiased third party to help website owners and agencies get back in control of their data and we expect our technology solutions to provide tremendous value for the entire ecosystem.”

About BrightTag
BrightTag provides data management solutions that enable online publishers and marketers to streamline the management and complexity of advertising and data-gathering tags. The company is based in Chicago, IL, with offices in New York and Palo Alto.  For more details on products and services, please visit: www.thebrighttag.com.

Extends Industry Leading Standard for Consumer Data Disclosure and Transparency to Web Publishers and Marketers

SEATTLE – BlueKai, the world’s largest data auction marketplace for all audience data and online marketing’s largest source of user intent data, today announced the launch of a white-label version of the BlueKai Registry. Developed for publishers and marketers, the registry provides an out-of-the-box solution for supporting transparent consumer data collection.

Since its launch in September 2009, BlueKai has uniquely enabled consumers to see the anonymous targeting data that has been collected about their shopping preferences by BlueKai data providers.  Via an online tool available at http://www.bluekai.com/registry, consumers have the ability to edit their online preferences or opt out completely.  The white-label consumer registry functions the same way; enabling any site visitors to see what data is being collected by a particular site or opt out.  This is a complimentary tool for all BlueKai customers to encourage wider industry adoption of transparent data collection practices that promote consumer awareness, control and trust.  BlueKai plans to roll out a similar tool for all publisher sites and marketers in the near future.

“At BlueKai, we have recognized from the beginning that many consumers care about their privacy.  Two years ago, we created the BlueKai Registry, which provides consumers transparency and control over what marketers know about them.  Recent developments in Washington including proposed legislation make it incumbent on all site publishers and marketers to be more diligent with their audiences about their data collection practices,” says Omar Tawakol BlueKai’s CEO. “Our white-label registry makes it easy for any website to adapt the industry standard we have established with BlueKai’s consumer-friendly registry.”

“The NAI encourages continued, pro-consumer privacy innovation from our members,” says Charles Curran, Executive Director of the Network Advertising Initiative.  “It is an increasingly important focus for advertising providers and Web sites to offer improved visibility and control to consumers over the information used to provide them more relevant advertising.   We encourage BlueKai and others to share technology like this for industry-wide adoption. ”

“TRUSTe’s clients enjoy the benefits of a strong consumer privacy program and recognized trademark.  Data collection and disclosure has become an increasingly important topic to address as part of our clients’ web strategies,” says Fran Maier, President and Executive Chair of TRUSTe.  “The white-label consumer registry from BlueKai is a clear solution to an obvious demand in the market.”

This white-label registry marks another consumer-focused innovation that BlueKai has developed to further its consumer disclosure initiative on an industry level.  In November 2009, the NAI announced the release of a consumer opt out protector, also developed by BlueKai.

At the center of the digital data economy, BlueKai (www.bluekai.com) created the world’s largest data auction marketplace for all audience data.  BlueKai aggregates valuable shopping and research activities across the Internet to build the largest source of intent data on over 160M shoppers across 7 key verticals including auto, travel, finance and retail.  BlueKai now sees 200 million unique consumers each month and manages over 750 million data events per day.  In strategic partnerships with top data aggregators, the BlueKai Exchange collectively offers over 30,000 data attributes across in-market, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, and B2B categories to increase performance and scale for direct response and branding campaigns.

BlueKai is designed with consumer transparency and control in mind. The BlueKai Registry enables consumers to see what marketers know about them, edit their online preferences and gain rewards in charitable donations. The privately-held company is based in Bellevue, WA and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising.

In Spite of ROI, Senior Execs Say they’re Holding Back Millions Due to Lack of Consumer Trust

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A new study of 90 organizations actively engaged in online marketing concludes that in spite of an acknowledged return on investment, hundreds of millions of dollars are being held back from online behavioral advertising (OBA) over concerns that a lack of consumer trust in the practice could damage brand reputation.

The study, Economic Impact of Privacy on Online Behavioral Advertising, conducted independently by the Ponemon Institute, found that although 70 percent of companies agreed that behaviorally targeted advertising substantially increases marketing and sales performance, and in spite of an overall favorable return, most companies surveyed have limited their online advertising budgets over privacy concerns. In fact, extrapolated results suggest that budgets would be as much as four times higher if not for these concerns.

Among the study’s noteworthy results:

98 percent of companies surveyed said they have restricted OBA because of privacy concerns;
63 percent of companies surveyed rated OBA as their most effective form of marketing; and,
Overall, companies surveyed reported under-spending on OBA budgets by 75 percent due to privacy concerns.
For the 90 companies benchmarked, the total amount not spent on OBA was $604.9 million.
“These numbers are disconcerting both in terms of the percentages and the potential economic impact,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute. “These data clearly indicate that, in spite of a belief that behavioral advertising is their most effective marketing channel, companies are holding back hundreds of millions of dollars from online marketing simply because of a lack of confidence that privacy concerns can be overcome”

As a result of the findings, the study concludes that companies are clearly concerned with the protection of consumer privacy and are sensitive to consumer unease with online behavioral advertising. The study recommends that advertisers, regulators, and privacy advocates work together to better address privacy concerns through improved disclosure models, consumer education, effective consent mechanisms and deployment of enabling technologies.

“If you can diminish the privacy concerns, money will flow into online behavioral advertising,” said Michael S. Zaneis, vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau in an article that appeared in the New York Times Bits section. “It would be a lift for the entire industry.” That article appears here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/privacy-concerns-limit-online-ads-study-says/?src=busln

Methodology

The Study, Economic Impact of Privacy on Online Behavioral Advertising, surveyed senior marketing executives from 90 organizations, representing 14 industries and with average annual revenue of $3.14 billion, operating in the United States. For a free copy of the study, please visit: www.ponemon.org.

About Ponemon Institute

The Ponemon Institute© is dedicated to advancing responsible information and privacy management practices in business and government. To achieve this objective, the Institute conducts independent research, educates leaders from the private and public sectors and verifies the privacy and data protection practices of organizations in a variety of industries.

Releases “Data Usage & Control Primer: Best Practices & Definitions”

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of “Data Usage & Control Primer: Best Practices & Definitions,” a guide that explains in plain terms what data can be collected online and how that data should be collected, as well as providing a lexicon of commonly used terms and recommending a set of business-to-business best practices to foster transparency and cohesion throughout the interactive advertising industry.

Developed in conjunction with leaders from branded publisher sites, ad networks and data companies, the Primer:

- Outlines the mechanics of online behavioral advertising and data collection and identifies the parties currently participating in the industry
- Sets out a point of view of the advertising-selling community regarding the use, control and valuation of data
- Proposes business-to-business (B2B) best practices for data usage and control
- Assembles a comprehensive lexicon of interactive advertising data definitions

“This document is an invaluable resource for all areas of the ecosystem and it’s the first time any organization has tackled the task of defining the data landscape,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “Data is what makes interactive advertising work for everyone—marketers, agencies, publishers and most importantly, consumers.”

“‘The Data Usage & Control Primer’ is a collective effort to answer a need in our industry,” said Patrick Dolan, EVP, CAO, and IAB leader on the IAB Data Usage & Control Task Force. “It addresses and helps resolve the contractual and competitive challenges that surround data usage and collection within the interactive advertising industry.”

The Primer is the latest addition to the IAB’s efforts to increase transparency, improve data security and ensure that interactive channels remain open and viable places to do business for the myriad of parties involved in interactive advertising. In July 2009 the IAB joined the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations in the release of “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” the industry’s most comprehensive self-regulatory guidelines on privacy in regards to the collection and use of consumer data. While the Privacy Principles address consumer privacy, the Primer was created with a specific focus on the B2B aspects of the use of data in digital advertising and marketing.

“Data Usage & Control Primer: Principles & Definitions” can be found on the IAB website at: http://iab.net/data_primer

About the IAB’s Data Usage and Control Taskforce:

The Data Taskforce was created to define the data landscape as it exists today and to suggest a set of recommended B2B best practices to guide the collection and use of data by all parties in the marketplace, consistent with the laws and regulations and the self-regulatory standards that apply.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Critical Step in Interactive Industry’s Ongoing Self-Regulatory Efforts

NEW YORK – Advancing the self-regulatory efforts of the digital advertising and marketing industry, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) released the CLEAR  Ad Notice Technical Specifications, a set of common technical standards enabling enhanced notice in online ads. These technical specifications will allow advertisers and ad networks to begin offering a clickable icon in or near online ads that directs users to additional information about online behavioral advertising and choices about such ads.

The icon-based approach to enhanced consumer notice was outlined in the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, which were released in July 2009 by a coalition of associations—American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Council for Better Business Bureaus (BBB).

“Transparency and notice are critical to creating a safe and enjoyable consumer experience,” said Mike Zaneis, Vice President, Public Policy of the IAB. “These specifications will allow third-party ad servers to seamlessly integrate the icon so that consumers have access to more information when they are being served an ad based on their interests and behaviors.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications detail how third-party media companies, such as advertising networks, can provide enhanced notice to consumers through an industry-standard set of metadata tags that are delivered along with behaviorally targeted advertisements.

Those metadata tags include information on which organization(s) served the ad, where to find their advertising policies and how to opt-out of such targeting in the future.

“The metadata infrastructure proposed in this specification provides a sound technical foundation for informative notice about behavioral advertising, while giving publishers, advertisers and ad networks the flexibility to adopt innovative approaches to consumer disclosure,” said Charles Curran, Executive Director of the NAI. “We look forward to working with the IAB and other leading industry associations to support implementation of enhanced notice to consumers.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications were developed to:

Meet the third-party requirements set forth in July 2009 as part of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising released in July 2009 by the cross-industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising Working Group
Provide enough flexibility for future expansion as the online advertising industry matures
Be open such that publishers, browser developers, tool developers or any other party can easily take advantage of the information presented to the user and find new ways to communicate this information.
The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications can be found at: www.iab.net/clear.

It is important to note that these technical specifications are intended for third-party media companies. There are separate requirements set forth in the Self-Regulatory Principles concerning first-party notice on publishers’ own websites, such as an independent link in the footer of a web page (e.g. “About Our Ads”). Publishers should refer to the Principles document for specific first-party guidance.

To view that document, please go to www.iab.net/behavioral-advertisingprinciples.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the NAI:

The NAI (Network Advertising Initiative) is a coalition of more than 40 leading online marketing companies committed to building consumer awareness and reinforcing responsible business and data management practices and standards, and which includes all ten of the largest online advertising networks in the United States. Its initiatives are piloted by a cooperative of the most significant online advertising companies including Akamai, AOL Advertising, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, AlmondNet, AudienceScience, BlueKai, Media6degrees, SpecificMEDIA and 24/7 Real Media. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, the NAI works to enhance consumer confidence through effective self-regulatory practices and user choice. To learn more, visit www.networkadvertising.org.

DUBLIN – Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Internet Advertising Market Assessment 2009” report to their offering.

In 2008, UK expenditure on Internet advertising was valued at £3.35bn. The Internet is the UK’s fastest-growing advertising medium and, in the first half of 2009, the UK became the first major European market in which online advertising expenditure exceeded television advertising expenditure.

The UK advertising market in general is being affected by the recession and revenues from other advertising media, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines and outdoor, are forecast to decline in 2009.

Although it is still important, television no longer monopolises the media schedule as it did in the past. Marketers have realised that digital promotion, including Internet advertising, is an inexpensive and effective way of building their brands. This trend has been prompted by a fundamental change in consumer behaviour due to the rise of the Internet and media fragmentation.

Search marketing remains the largest single format within the Internet advertising mix. It has become a staple on the media schedule and is increasingly integrated into traditional and online advertising campaigns. The second-largest sector of the Internet advertising market is classified advertising, expenditure on which now exceeds that on display advertising. Solus e-mail advertising is now a very minor sector of the market.

One controversial area of Internet advertising is behavioural advertising, which works by constantly analysing customers’ Web surfing activity to determine their interests. The technology then delivers targeted advertising to users when they visit certain websites. In April 2009, the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against the UK as a result of concerns about the UK’s implementation of EU ePrivacy and personal data-protection rules. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has also begun an investigation into potentially misleading advertising on the Internet.

Original research for this report found that 97.3% of British Internet users now access the Internet at home. The survey also revealed that 96.3% of those who had used the Internet in the previous 12 months usually accessed the Internet using a broadband connection. Online shopping continues to increase in popularity, with 86.4% of the Internet users in a survey having shopped online. Concern about fraudulent card use, though still evident, appears to be in decline as a barrier to online transactions.

This report forecasts that expenditure on Internet advertising in the UK will continue to rise in 2009, although the rate of growth will be considerably lower than in previous years, as a result of the recession. Thereafter, the report projects that expenditure on online advertising will rise more rapidly, in line with the increasing popularity and use of the Internet.

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary

1. Introduction

Overview
Definition

2. Strategic Overview

Market Dynamics And Segmentation
The Consumer
Competitive Structure
Key Trade Associations
Market Forecasts

3. Market Analysis

Market Size
Factors Influencing Market Growth

4. An International Perspective

The Total Advertising Market
Internet Usage
Leading Internet Advertising Markets
Eiaa Mediascope Europe 2008

5. Pest Analysis

Political Factors
Economic Factors
Social Factors
Technological Factors

6. Consumer Dynamics

Overview
Internet Access
Location Of Internet Access
Frequency Of Internet Access
Internet Shopping
Internet Advertising
Advertising Of Websites In Other Media
Other Factors Influencing Consumer Attitudes

7. Company Profiles

Aegis Media Ltd
Emc Consulting (Uk) Ltd
I-Level Ltd
Lbi Ltd
Poke London Ltd
Profero Ltd
Tribal Ddb Cis Uk Ltd
Twentysix London Ltd

8. The Future

Introduction
Forecasts 2009 To 2013
Long-Term Trends

9. Further Sources

Associations
General Sources
Government Sources
Other Sources
Key Note Sources
Understanding Tgi Data
Number, Profile, Penetration
Social Grade
Standard Region
Research
Range Of Reports

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/74d282/internet_advertisi

http://blog.betteradvertising.com/2009/12/07/self-regulation-your-business-and-your-privacy/

By Scott Meyer, CEO, Better Advertising

Fitting The Pieces of Self-Regulation Together

WASHINGTON – At Better Advertising, we believe that industry self-regulation is the key to more transparent ads that produce better results. How our industry fits the pieces of Self-Regulation together will be a major topic of conversation at the FTC’s Exploring Privacy Roundtables. The first is Monday, December 7th. Better Advertising will be there, actively tweeting and blogging. Keep an eye out for me, Colin O’Malley and Sim Simeonov. And, Better Advertising will be filing a request to participate at the next one on January 28th in Berkley.

While Better Advertising lives this stuff every day, it can be fairly opaque to many. Here’s the way Better Advertising sees the situation.

The Cross-Industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising which rolled out in July of this year was a huge step. The leading trade associations in the online advertising industry came together to document the rules of conduct they expect their members to follow. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. As the document states:

“The Self-Regulatory Program consists of seven Principles. These Principles, described below, correspond with the “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” proposed by the Federal Trade Commission in February 2009, and also address public education and industry accountability issues raised by the Commission.”

The seven self-regulatory principles are: Education, Transparency, Consumer Control, Data Security, Material Changes to Existing Online Behavioral, Advertising Policies and Practices, Sensitive Data and Accountability.

The first to roll out was the IAB’s new Privacy Matters campaign to address the education principle. More than 500 million impressions are being donated by major media outlets to get the point across. WPP, a Better Advertising design partner, did a great job here on the creative. Twenty leading publishers and ad networks donated ad inventory. Stay tuned, there will a lot more information to educate consumers as to what is going on. Better Advertising will be playing a major part of that effort.

The next step in self-regulation is “the icon.” The icon will alert consumers that an ad is using or collecting behavioral data to target them. It also gives consumers more information about behavioral advertising and provides a logical way to exercise the choice of whether or not to be targeted. The Future of Privacy Forum (where Better Advertising is on the Advisory Board) working with important academics Mary Culnan and Manoj Hastak plus Better Advertising’s friends at WPP’s GroupM and Kantar have pulled together a very impressive set of choices. They just announced it as their New Privacy and Personalization Symbols Finalists. This is a project which Better Advertising enthusiastically supports. It’s been incorporated into what Better Advertising will be delivering to clients.

So, that brings us to the last piece of the self-regulation puzzle. How will companies be able to prove that they actually following all of these principles? That’s where the Accountability Principle comes in, and that’s what Better Advertising does. This will end up being the most complicated, and most important, part of successful self-regulation. It requires processing billions of events per day and integrating with hundreds of companies across the online advertising ecosystem. For that, you need a custom-built technology solution that is laser focused on Behavioral Advertising and complying with the Principles.

Better Advertising is actively engaged with all the key players in this effort as we roll out our platform. And there is a lot of good work that’s going into this space. The NAI’s new opt-out extension for Firefox is one example. As is the Yahoo CLEAR notice protocol. The Better Advertising platform supports, and is complementary to, these and alternative technologies that will be coming to market soon.

Behavioral advertising is here to stay. It makes for a better consumer web experience. It delivers better results for advertisers. It will take a lot of continued hard work to deliver the kind of transparency that consumers, regulators and legislators are demanding. And Better Advertising is committed to working with everyone to make this happen to ensure our industry stays self-regulated and keeps on growing.

Provides Consumers with Greater Transparency and Control over Their Online Advertising Experience

WASHINGTON – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) released a beta version of a new consumer tool called Ad Interest Manager, which takes transparency in online advertising to a new level for building user trust. Ad Interest Manager http://privacy.yahoo.com/aim is a central place where Yahoo! visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity and make easy, constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo! Ad Network.

“Ads tailored to users’ interests make online experiences more compelling and user-focused, and the new tool Yahoo! is launching today will provide transparency into how Yahoo!’s interest-based advertising works,” said Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, Anne Toth. “Yahoo! is committed to providing consumers with increased transparency and control when they are online. Ad Interest Manager will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up-to-date information.” Anne Toth also pointed out: “Importantly, users who don’t want interest-based ads can turn them off completely.”

Yahoo!’s new Ad Interest Manager tool:

* Provides a central point where Yahoo! visitors can assert even greater control over their online experience.
* Gives visitors an unparalleled view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising.
* Shows the visitor both Yahoo!’s educated guesses about their interests and a summary of observations, along with other information they have provided.
* Provides a list of specific interest categories that Yahoo! has placed a user into and lets people turn those categories off.
* Allows people who don’t want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely.

“Yahoo! has long provided its users with products and services for free, thanks to a business model based almost entirely on advertising, and we’ve found that consumers are more likely to click on advertising that speaks directly to them and their interests,” said Yahoo! Vice President and General Manager of Display Advertising, David Zinman. “With the introduction of Ad Interest Manager, users can not only get a better understanding of how the process works, but they can also communicate better with Yahoo! and our advertisers about what most interests them.”

Yahoo!’s Ad Interest Manager is currently available in beta in the U.S. and will soon be made available to UK and European users. Planned future enhancements to the Ad Interest Manager will also let users add categories of interest that Yahoo! may have missed.

To see what the new Ad Interest Manager looks like and how it works, please visit http://privacy.yahoo.com/aim.

Yahoo! was one of the first companies to implement a layered privacy center http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html model more than eight years ago, which provides people with a central place to understand and control their privacy online, as well as their options when it comes to the use of personal data. This information is coupled with our industry-leading data-retention policy http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/17/your-data-goes-incognito/, which anonymizes most Web log data within 90 days. The policy also strives to ensure that Yahoo! retains data only long enough to serve the business and create the highest-quality user experiences, while simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal obligations.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most trafficked Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo!’s vision is to be the center of people’s online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal http://yodel.yahoo.com.

Demystifies Key Online Advertising Practices, Increases Awareness of Consumer Choice Tools

NEW YORK – To educate consumers and provide them with the resources to help them manage their privacy online, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the launch of “Privacy Matters,” its first-ever consumer education campaign that will run across a broad cross section of top-tier online media outlets. While the digital media industry has done an extraordinary job of transforming the way consumers experience entertainment and information, it hasn’t been as effective at explaining how it all works to the average person.

The “Privacy Matters” advertising campaign and its accompanying website, www.iab.net/privacymatters, were designed by Schematic, a WPP company. The online campaign consists of a series of unique and visually striking aesthetics and bold headlines that will guide people to the “Privacy Matters” site, an information-rich website where consumers can access resources and tools designed to help them protect their online privacy and engage in conversation about their privacy concerns.

“The ‘Privacy Matters’ campaign and website is an example of how the IAB is taking a leadership role in communicating with consumers in plain English about how to manage their privacy online and providing them with the resources to do it,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “What’s most impressive about this campaign is that the media partners and agencies involved in this effort donated their time and resources for free—a testament to their collective commitment to our work to protect consumers and allow digital media to keep transforming the way consumers experience entertainment and information.”

The “Privacy Matters” campaign is part of an ongoing, industry-wide effort to develop more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices by increasing transparency, developing ubiquitous consumer choice mechanisms, improving data security and advancing consumer awareness of online privacy issues. In July 2009 the IAB joined the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations in the release of “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media. The principles directly address public education and industry accountability issues raised by the FTC and include an Education Principle that calls for organizations to participate in efforts to educate individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising. The “Privacy Matters” campaign launches with commitments of more than 500 million online advertising impressions and will run through 2010 with the goal being at least 1 billion impressions served, which would be sufficient to reach nearly every American online.

“As a marketing partner to some of the world’s largest brands, we are pleased to have been selected to develop the ‘Privacy Matters’ campaign in conjunction with the IAB,” said Trevor Kaufman CEO of Schematic. “With consumers living such a large portion of their lives online, it’s imperative that they understand how their information is used in providing them with a more relevant and personalized Internet experience. We applaud the IAB for launching this campaign and think Web users will find the information extremely helpful.”

To view the “Privacy Matters” website, please go to: www.iab.net/privacymatters

To view the advertising campaign, please go to: www.iab.net/pr-120309

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Ad Effx Action Lift for Gaming measures effectiveness of in-game advertising on online consumer behavior

REDMOND, Wash. and RESTON, Va. —  For the first time ever, advertisers will now be able to see the direct impact that in-game advertisements have on consumer online behavior, thanks to a new research partnership between Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp., and comScore, Inc.  Through an innovative methodology developed by the two companies, advertisers will get an inside look at the degree to which in-game ads motivate gamers to visit Web sites, conduct brand-related search queries and engage in other online actions, something that previously had gone un-measured.

“We know from 80-plus independently verified post-campaign studies that in-game advertising increases brand engagement,” said JJ Richards, general manager of Massive Inc., the creator of a leading network for dynamic video game advertising. “But what we didn’t know was the correlation between in-game ads and consumer action.  Through this partnership with comScore, we will also now be able to measure those consumer actions that result from in-game ads.  We think this has the potential to literally ‘change the game’ for both advertisers and publishers who want to improve the effectiveness of their in-game ad efforts.”

Ad Effx Action Lift for Gaming matches in-game console ad serving data from Massive with comScore’s third-party, post-campaign panel data to track and measure in-game advertising effectiveness. By combining Microsoft’s proprietary, non-personally identifying Anonymous ID data, which is common across Xbox LIVE and Microsoft Web properties (known as Windows Live IDs), with user data from comScore’s panel of two million Internet users worldwide, comScore can determine if panelists who saw in-game advertising subsequently visited a brand’s Web site, searched brand-related terms or engaged in other online behaviors important to advertisers.

The methodology is similar to the ad tracking and measurement standards currently accepted for other forms of digital advertising, and maintains strict consumer privacy and anonymity in the process.

Preliminary research conducted by comScore using the new methodology on a number of recent Massive in-game campaigns showed that people exposed to in-game ads demonstrated the following online behaviors when compared to a control group of people who were not exposed to the ads:
·                     280 percent increase in visits to a TV channel’s Web site;
·                     125 percent increase in search queries for a movie rental brand and 57 percent spike in visits to its Web site; and
·                     17 percent increase in visits to entertainment sites after seeing ads for a particular movie.

“We believe Ad Effx Action Lift for Gaming puts in-game advertising campaign measurement on a level playing field with comparable digital media,” said Mike Hurt, senior vice president, comScore. “With this kind of methodology, we are addressing the need for better standards of ad effectiveness measurement across all forms of digital media. Advertisers can now track post-campaign online activity, including direct Web site visits, search queries, and other consumer behaviors among people who have been exposed to in-game ads.”

comScore and Massive have submitted this new methodology to the Advertising Research Foundation for validation.

The announcement coincides with the second annual Microsoft Advertising Gaming Upfront event in New York City — the only event of its kind that showcases new video game titles from leading game publishers to that allow enable advertisers to connect and engage audiences on the Massive in-game advertising network.
About Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising provides advertisers and publishers with media, tools and services designed to drive deep and profitable engagement with their audiences. This includes a global media network of Microsoft properties such as MSN, Windows Live, Xbox LIVE, and partner properties such as Facebook, WSJ.com and Verizon. The Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Suites simplify planning and management of campaigns and content, offering a range of services that help advertisers and publishers untangle the complexities of digital media and get more out of their marketing and content investments. Microsoft Advertising makes buying and selling media simple, smart and cost-effective across media and devices spanning 42 markets and 21 languages. Visit http://advertising.microsoft.com for more information.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

WASHINGTON – Rob Housman, Executive Director of the Cyber Secure Institute, released the following statement concerning the latest quarterly report by PandaLabs showing that Americans are at a greater risk from online threats than ever before. Malicious links on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have helped fuel a sudden increase online threats in the third quarter of 2009.

The third quarter was a record breaking one for hackers when it came to creating new threats. From July to September PandaLabs noted over 5 million new strains of Malware. Most of these new strains were banker Trojans, which steal information such as bank accounts, usernames, passwords and credit card details from your computer and send it to the hacker.

PandaLabs found over 50,000 new forms of malware each day.

This surge was also responsible for increasing the number of infected personal computers across the globe to 15%.

Cybercriminals have also been increasingly taking advantage of social networking sites to spread the Koobface worm, which infect a user’s computer and, unbeknownst to the user, use their computer to spread other computers.

The worm spreads by posting malicious links to the virus on a user’s personal social networking page and also includes scareware designed to fool the user into buying phony antivirus programs.

Criminals also took advantage of search engines to spread malware, duping people into visiting infected sites by using popular search terms.

Housman said:

“Social networking links us all closer together, which in turns makes us all more vulnerable. More people than ever are using social networking. There are over 300 million people actively using Facebook and Twitter is growing at a staggering 1382% each year.

These networks are only as strong as their weakest link and one person’s risk becomes everyone’s risk. Hackers understand they are vulnerable to prey. Because of their sheer size, social networks have accelerated the spread of these worms. What used to take months to spread now can take hours.

Every year these criminals are responsible for billions of dollars worth of theft from American individuals and businesses, not even taking into account the amount of money these individuals and businesses spend on having the malware removed.

However, this does not need to be the case. Most businesses and individuals in America are relying on systems that are inherently insecure to protect them from cybercriminals.

Technologies do exist that can effectively protect us and those in our networks. These technologies are NIAP-NSA certified against the most sophisticated threats. The NSA-NIAP system utilizes Evaluation Assurance Levels in conjunction with the Common Criteria security profiles to grade both the security of systems and indicate the level of confidence in that grade. These levels range from EAL1 (minimal security) to EAL 7 (highly secure). Most of the IT systems that we now rely on have been certified up to EAL4+ and only for inadvertent, non-hostile and unsophisticated attacks.

The fact is these hackers are anything but unsophisticated and they are taking advantage of anything they can. According to the PandaLabs report, “Cyber-crooks’ are trying to infect the maximum number of computers possible, exploiting vulnerabilities and using social engineering techniques in spam messages, social networks and search engines through Blackhat SEO techniques.”

These hackers are not your proverbial kids hacking away in the basement while their parents are asleep. Many of these hackers belong to international organized crime rings. These recent growth in malware highlights the success the hackers are having and the failure of our current hack-and-patch systems.

Fortunately, there are now systems—for example Integrity Global Security and Tenix—that are certified at EAL 6+ against the most rigorous security profiles. However, we have yet to deploy them and will remain vulnerable until we do so.

Audience Discovery Platform Brings a New Level of Real-Time, Data-Driven Audience Optimization to Advertising Agencies With a Focus on Privacy

SAN MATEO, Calif. – Aggregate Knowledge (AK), the leading provider of real-time display optimization solutions, announced it has been accepted for membership with the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards.

Aggregate Knowledge and its suite of Discovery products will comply with the NAI’s privacy standards and policies to promote the long-term growth and viability of the Internet as a vibrant and trustworthy advertising channel.

Aggregate Knowledge’s flagship Discovery Platform helps validate user targeting and optimize campaigns in real time.

On every ad impression, the ad viewer is mapped against both proprietary and third-party data to validate the accuracy of the targeting and to simultaneously select the best campaign, creative, and landing pages for that user. Aggregate Knowledge develops powerful and robust technology that depends on accurate data to deliver maximum value to advertisers and agencies. As such, Aggregate Knowledge is particularly sensitive to consumer privacy protection and has implemented a strict data management policy and process throughout each phase of the advertising cycle – from data collection to user validation, campaign optimization, and audience insights.

“We are excited to welcome Aggregate Knowledge to the NAI. We look forward to working with them to help maintain and develop standards for responsible behavioral marketing,” said NAI Assistant Director Jim Campbell.

With a complex and still inefficient ecosystem of publishers, networks, and exchanges, advertisers can use Audience Discovery to find their target audiences and reduce inventory waste, while promoting consumer transparency and choice.

“We take consumer privacy very seriously and value working with NAI members,” said Steve Katelman, Global Director of Strategic Partnerships, Omnicom Media Group. “I am glad to see Aggregate Knowledge join NAI to help us deliver more value to our clients with enhanced consumer transparency and choice.”

About the NAI (Network Advertising Initiative)

The NAI is a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, consumer concerns about their impact on online privacy mount. The NAI is prepared to meet these concerns with both effective industry self-regulation and sensible protections for online consumers. To find out more about the NAI, visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org.

About Aggregate Knowledge

Aggregate Knowledge®, the leading provider of real-time display optimization solutions, brings unparalleled efficiency, relevance, and performance to every marketing interaction. Aggregate Knowledge technology helps agencies, advertisers, and ad networks serve the best campaign, the best creative, and the best content, individualized to the tastes and needs of each consumer.

Aggregate Knowledge’s patent-pending platform combines real-time media, audience, and content optimizations by leveraging anonymous click-stream data from over 70 million users, over 1.6 million items, and high-quality data from trusted third-party providers.

Aggregate Knowledge is funded by premier venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, and First Round Capital.

More information can be found at www.aggregateknowledge.com

Company to Publish TV Measurement Data Formats to Encourage Development of Next Generation Television Applications and Services, and Creates Analysis Partner Program with Leaders in Audience Measurement
IBC 2009
Hall 1 Stand C81

SAN FRANCISCO – OpenTV Corp. (NASDAQ:OPTV), a leading software and technology provider of advanced digital television solutions, announced that it will open its TV measurement platform by publishing, later this year, the format of key data points its software is able to measure on the set-top box. This open access will allow the developer community, data analysis partners and other service providers to integrate with OpenTV’s measurement solution more easily, and foster the creation of next generation set-top-box services with enhanced personalization features, such as addressable and interactive advertising, content addressability, and other value-added services.

In addition, OpenTV announced the creation of an Analysis Partner Program, which will offer operators a solution for accurately measuring viewer behavior on the set-top box with minimal change to existing infrastructure.

Initial participants in this program include some of the leaders in audience measurement: AdsVantage, Nielsen, Rentrak Corporation, and TNS. In combining OpenTV’s middleware expertise with the data analysis capabilities of experts in the field, OpenTV is enabling operators to drive new and higher advertising revenues, monitor quality of service issues, better manage their channel line-up and subscription tiering, as well as measure usage of service offerings such as PVR, VOD or interactive applications, all while respecting viewer privacy.

“By opening up our platform and extending it to third party solutions, we are taking a major step toward enriching the television experience and creating a uniform approach to measurement,” said Tracy Geist, SVP Business Development, OpenTV. “We’re not only enabling service providers to capture relevant information — especially on viewing behavior and PVR interactions — and giving them access to crucial reporting and analysis capabilities, but we’re enabling the developer community to create exciting new applications for next generation television, to make it more personalized and meaningful.”

OpenTV’s Measurement Solution is part of OpenTV’s Core2 middleware platform and can be integrated seamlessly with any of the various supported user interfaces, which results in a streamlined offering for operators that wish to capitalize on the wealth of detailed data available through the set-top box while fully protecting viewer privacy: the solution is flexible enough to allow collected click stream data to be anonymized either by storing only rollup data, or by applying privacy filtering at the time of data send-back. It also allows network operators to secure interfaces with third-parties while retaining their own access to data, and to comply with geography-specific regulations. Benefits of the solution include:

* New advertiser-based revenues. Second-by-second audience measurement allows advertisers to see how long viewers watch ads before zapping or fast forwarding. Operators can generate new revenues from advertisers by selling ad viewership reports.
* Higher advertising revenues from low viewership channels. Channels with less than two percent viewership are typically undervalued by advertisers because of the lack of accurate reporting by traditional audience measurement techniques. More accurate audience measurement of these channels can increase their value to advertisers and therefore increase the potential of the operator to derive revenues.
* Better management of channel lineup. Detailed viewership data across channels gives network operators the tools needed to negotiate with content providers more effectively by validating the content viewing assumptions that drive pricing decisions.
* Validation of existing services and introduction of new ones. Usage data on services such as PVR and VOD can validate — or challenge — assumptions about an offering’s appeal, revealing decisions on features and functionalities that can significantly increase an operator’s return on investment. When incorporated into a new feature rollout or pilot, detailed data can shape development and better ensure success.
* Measurement of interactive applications, including the user interface. Operators can understand in detail how users interact with the “face” of their service: the user interface and other interactive content, enabling them to easily identify areas for improvement.
* Monitoring and improving of quality of service. Detailed, second-by-second information about what occurs on the set-top box enables network operators to identify systemic problems and address them proactively, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing costly service calls and customer churn.

Features of OpenTV’s Measurement Solution will be on display at IBC 2009, Hall 1 Stand C81. For more information on OpenTV’s Measurement Solution or Analysis Partner Program, please contact measurement@opentv.com.

About OpenTV

OpenTV is one of the world’s leading providers of advanced digital television solutions dedicated to creating and delivering compelling viewing experiences to consumers of digital content worldwide. The company’s software has been integrated in more than 133 million devices around the world and enables advanced program guides, video-on-demand, personal video recording, interactive and addressable advertising and a variety of enhanced television applications. OpenTV’s campaign management solutions currently provide advertising services to more than 34 million cable subscribers across the United States representing more than 55 percent of the subscriber base of the top ten MSOs. For more information, please visit www.opentv.com.

NEW YORK – Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue, Reportlinker Adds Online Advertising – 2009 Edition.

The Global Online Advertising Market 2009-2012

This report provides a thorough analysis of the online advertising market that is currently changing shape – exploring the techniques being used and the main approaches being taken to advertising on the Web, along with an examination of the positioning of the top players, the central issues facing the sector and market forecasts up to 2012 by country and by ad format.

Key Questions

• What is the size of the online advertising market, worldwide and nationally?
• At what rate will the market progress between 2009 and 2012 at a time of global crisis in the advertising sector?
• What weight does search marketing really have?
• What market share will display ads have as rich media and video advertising develop?
• What are the most widely anticipated technologies and developments: behavioural targeting, video advertising, audience measurement?
• How is the sector’s new value chain being organised between advertisers, agencies, online ad services, keyword sales and Websites?

Players Included in the Report:

Supporting sites

Google
Yahoo!
Microsoft/MSN
AOL
Ask
Facebook
MySpace
YouTube
Hulu
CNN
New York Times
The Weather Channel
Craigslist
Bebo
BBC
The Guardian
Virgin Media
Au Féminin
Pages Jaunes
Dailymotion
Skyrock
Doctissimo L’Equipe
Deezer
Orange
Web.de
GMX
T-Online
Spiegel Online
El Mundo
Marca
Terra
Libero
Corriere della Serra
Gazzetta
Baidu
QQ
Sohu
Sina
Naver
Cyworld
Daum
Livedoor
FC2
Mixi

Online ad solutions

Adtech (Platform-A)
DoubleClick
24/7 Real Media
ValueClick
Right Media
aQuantive
InterCLICK
FOX Networks
Adviva
Hi-Media
Horyzon Media
Adverline
Orange Advertising Network
AdLink
Ad2Net
Coguan
Premium Publisher Network
Allyes
Digital Advertising Consortium

Agencies

TBWA Worldwide
Rapp
Agency.com
Razorfish
Digitas
Performics
Efficient Frontier
iCrossing
Omniture
Sapient
Carat
Isobar
FullSix
XiTi
Wunderloop
Scholz & Friends
Plan.net
Allyes
Cheil Worldwide
Portfolio
Dentsu
Hakuhodo
Asatsu-DK
Affiliation platforms
Commission Junction
LinkShare
Hydra Network
Advaliant
Clickbooth
TradeDoubler
Webgains
Affiliate Advantage
Effiliation
Netaffiliation
Zanox
Affilinet
ChineseAN
LinkPrice
ValueCommerce

1. Executive Summary

2. Methodology

3. Market Structure

3.1. Market overview

3.1.1. Definition
• Above the line and below the line marketing
• Internet: a medium serving non-media advertising
• Pricing models
• Spending on advertising (gross, net)

3.1.2. Market segmentation
• Goals of advertising campaigns
• One format per buying cycle
• Display and sponsoring
• Search marketing
• Classified ads
• Online directories

3.2. Market estimates 2005-2008

3.2.1. Market by advertising format
• Display
• Search Marketing
3.2.2. Market by geographical zone
• EU-27 and EU-5
Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK
• The United States
• China, South Korea, Japan

3.3. Key factors

3.3.1. Key technologies
• Improving relevance
• Targeting: segmentation and qualification
• Contextualisation
• Tracking and behavioural targeting
• Behavioural targeting
• Right to privacy and regulated limits
• Rise of video advertising
• Audience measurement
• Efficiency of the advertising-content mix
3.3.2. Consumption patterns driving the growth of online advertising
3.3.3. Service industry trends
• Advertising innovations
• Video and new ad formats
• Marketing 2.0
• Display: new generation banners
• Developments in audience measurement

4. Structure & Strategy

4.1. Player profiles

4.1.1. Value chain
• Search marketing
• Display
4.1.2. Competition structure
• Large number of advertisers
• Online ad services: a splintered market
• Online advertising end market: an oligopoly
4.1.3. Business models
• Widely varying ad creation costs
• Revenue and costs for a typical online company
• Sharing ad revenue
• E-marketing and e-commerce

4.2. Player profiles

4.2.1. Summary table
• Display sites
• Online advertising services
• Agencies
• Affiliation platforms
4.2.2. Player profiles

4.3. Strategic analysis

4.3.1. Evolution of the main formats
• End of the golden age for search marketing?
• The rise of a two-tier display market?
4.3.2. Local advertising: a boon for online marketing
4.3.3. Ad creation: going beyond the Flash vs. link dilemma
4.3.4. How the Web is adjusting to the crisis

• Shrunken advertising market overall
• Online advertising market continues to grow
• Increasing demand for performance-based formats
• Increased pressure on prices

5. Markets & Forecasts

5.1. Growth factors

5.1.1. Analysis of growth/disruptive factors
5.1.2. Forecast hypotheses

5.2. Market forecasts

5.2.1. Forecasts 2009-2012
5.2.2. Forecasts by segment, by platform
5.2.3. Forecasts by geographical zone

List of Tables

• Table 1: Main features of above and below the line advertising
• Table 2: Forms of online advertising
• Table 3: The AIDA model applied to online advertising
• Table 4: Growth of time spent online per week in Europe, from 2006 to 2008
• Table 5: Growth of online video viewing in France, Germany and the UK, 2007 and 2008

List of Figures

• Figure 1: Online advertising market: worldwide, in Europe and in the United States, 2005-2012
• Figure 2: Breakdown of the global online advertising market in 2007
• Figure 3: Breakdown of advertisers and spending in the first half of 2008
• Figure 4: 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream platform
• Figure 5: Growth of Internet users worldwide between 2007 and 2008 (% of total population)
• Figure 6: Most popular online activities in Europe, 2007 and 2008
• Figure 7: Growth of the number of monthly searches performed by Internet users around the world, 2007 and 2008
• Figure 8: Change in the breakdown of European users’ weekly media consumption time, 2006 to 2008
• Figure 9: Share of European users’ weekly media consumption time spent on the Internet in 2008
• Figure 10: Change in average advertiser spending in France, by medium, 2006-2008
• Figure 11: Number of videos watched online in the United States
• Figure 12: Number of unique visitors to video sites in the United States
• Figure 13: Percentage of American Internet users who have watched a video online
• Figure 14: Average time spent watching videos online, per viewer in the United States
• Figure 15: Growth of social networking site users around the world between September 2007 and September 2008
• Figure 16: Growth of the number of unique monthly visitors on the main social networking sites around the world, 2006-2008
• Figure 17: Percentage of Internet users who have bought at least one item online
• Figure 18: Overlay in online video and sponsoring
• Figure 19: YouTube InVideo Ads
• Figure 20: Product placement in an online video
• Figure 21: Blinkx un-roll
• Figure 22: Logic of contextual advertising in online video
• Figure 23: Internet users’ reaction to in-video ads
• Figure 24: Sample communities: Nike, EasyJet and H&M on MySpace
• Figure 25: Verizon’s Business Page on Facebook
• Figure 26: Pizza Hut application on Facebook
• Figure 27: Engagement Ads on Facebook
• Figure 28: Growth of annual advertising spending on social networking sites worldwide, 2007-2013
• Figure 29: Breakdown of advertising spending on social networking sites in the US, in 2008 and 2009
• Figure 30: Buying a DVD via a banner ad, developed by Tailgate
• Figure 31: Advertising industry organisation
• Figure 32: Growth of Google advertisers (thousands)
• Figure 33: Breakdown of advertisers’ media spending in France, by advertising medium
• Figure 34: Top 5 ad networks in terms of penetration rate in the United States in December 2008
• Figure 35: Breakdown of the ad server market in 2008 (% of requests sent to ad servers)
• Figure 36: Market share of the top five search engines in the United States (% of requests launched on the five engines)
• Figure 37: Most popular search sites in Europe in March 2008 (% of searches)
• Figure 38: Breakdown of China’s search marketing market in Q3 2008 (% of revenue)
• Figure 49: Breakdown of visits to e-commerce sites in France brought by sponsored links, in February 2008
• Figure 40: Leading ad carrying sites in the US in June 2008 (% of impressions)
• Figure 41: Advertising revenue’s contribution to Google, Yahoo! and AuFéminin.com’s income in 2008
• Figure 42: Breakdown of Google’s annual revenue
• Figure 43: Breakdown of Google and Yahoo!’s operating costs in 2008, by cost item
• Figure 44: Change in the annual growth rate of Google’s search marketing business and revenue in the United States
• Figure 45: Yellow Pages’ online revenue in the US, 2002-2008
• Figure 46: Breakdown of business directory segment revenue in France
• Figure 47: Forecast annual spending on local digital media* advertising in the United States
• Figure 48: Digital media’s share of spending on local advertising in the United States
• Figure 49: Growth forecasts for advertising spending worldwide in 2009 and 2010, according to Carat
• Figure 50: Media likely to benefit from budget changes in 2009, at the expense of others
• Figure 51: Media that will suffer from budget changes in 2009 that will benefit others
• Figure 52: Revised online ad spending between 2008 and 2009
• Figure 53: Advertisers’ stated reasons for increasing their Internet budgets, at the expense of other media
• Figure 54: Change in the breakdown of online ad revenue in the United States by pricing model
• Figure 55: Change in average net CPM for display ads (excl. commission), all sizes of site
• Figure 56: Change in average net CPM for display ads (excl. commission), by size of site
• Figure 57: Change in the CPC on the top search engines in the United States
• Figure 58: Google’s quarterly income in 2008
• Figure 59: Google’s quarterly net income in 2008
• Figure 60: Google’s annual income 2004-2008
• Figure 61: Google’s annual net income 2004-2008

To order this report:

Reportlinker Adds Online Advertising – 2009 Edition

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0147072/Reportlinker-Adds-Online-Advertising—2009-Edition.html

Global Deal Creates Better Choice for Consumers and Advertisers

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash. – Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

For Web users and advertisers, this deal will accelerate the pace and breadth of innovation by combining both companies’ complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft’s competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for Web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the Internet.

Under this agreement, Yahoo! will focus on its core business of providing consumers with great experiences with the world’s favorite online destinations and Web products.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry, and I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities and mobile experiences.”

Providing a viable alternative to advertisers, this deal will combine Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search. With the addition of Yahoo!’s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said the agreement will provide Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, the scale necessary to more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

“This deal fits the long-term strategic direction of Yahoo! to remain the world’s leading online media company and Carol Bartz has the full and unanimous support of the Yahoo! Board behind this deal,” said Roy Bostock, chairman, Yahoo! Inc. “This is a significant opportunity for us. Microsoft is an industry innovator in search and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future.”

The key terms of the agreement are as follows:

- The term of the agreement is 10 years;
- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms;
- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology;
- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process;
- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force;
- Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology;
- Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites;
- Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement; and
- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
- Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country;
- At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million; and
- The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The agreement entered into today anticipates that the parties will enter into more detailed definitive agreements prior to closing. Microsoft and Yahoo! expect the agreement to be closely reviewed by the industry and government regulators, and welcome questions. The companies are hopeful that closing can occur in early 2010.

The companies have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement.

Yahoo! and Microsoft hosted a conference call with Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss the agreement. To listen to the call, please dial 1-866-515-2908 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-399-5122 international, reservation number: 47968026. A live webcast of the call can be accessed through Yahoo!’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/results.cfm. In addition, an archive of the webcast is available through the same link. An audio replay of the call will be available for two weeks following the conference call by calling 1-888-286-8010 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-801-6888 international, reservation number: 91217610.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq “YHOO”) is a leading global consumer brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is where millions of people go every day to see what is happening with the people and things that matter to them most. Yahoo! helps marketers reach that audience with its unique and compelling advertiser proposition. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal at http://yodel.yahoo.com.

“Owned and Operated sites” refers to Yahoo!’s owned and operated online properties and services.

“Affiliate sites” refers to Yahoo!’s distribution network of third-party entities who have integrated Yahoo!’s advertising offerings into their websites or their other offerings.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

NEW YORK – Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue, High Growth Forecast in Digital Advertising .

The digital advertising industry is changing fast, sending reverberations down the length of the value chain. With consumers taking greater control of their viewing, companies are re-evaluating their digital media assets and finding new ways of engaging.

Executive summary

In a nutshell

Key messages

Online advertising is a glimmer of hope in the recession

The digital advertising value chain is in a period of disruption

Other areas of digital advertising will not fare so well

Targeting based on deep packet investigation (DPI) is driving concerns over privacy into the regulatory arena

Social media fosters new models of engagement but should not be seen as an advertising nirvana

Do not underestimate how difficult it is to get application-based advertising right

Twitter has potential as a marketing and advertising channel

Rich media is good but sympathetic execution is better

New metrics identify the media really doing the work

Digital advertising value chain analysis

The changing shape of the digital advertising value chain

Advertisers

Advertisers take more direct control of agency functions

Advertising and media buying agencies

Digital performance metrics are becoming more granular

Advertisers are bringing more online ad functions in-house

Ad exchanges and auctions are disrupting media buying

Conversational marketing is changing the nature of advertising inventory

Advertising networks and exchanges

The rise of the horizontal players

Competition kicks in, forcing differentiation

Targeting: behavioural and contextual ad networks

Premium ad networks

Platform/media specialists

The vertical ad network explosion

The role of the advertising exchange

Ad serving and targeting

Ad serving in a nutshell

The importance of targeting

Contextual targeting

The rise of behavioural targeting

Deep packet data inspection: kicking up controversy

Media owners

The changing nature of digital advertising inventory and those who own it

The rise of social media

Digital media metrics: models for measuring value and performance

Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)

Cost per click (CPC)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) model

Key trends and future developments

Social networks: a new model for engagement

Getting the rules of engagement right is critical

Engagement also carries risk

Picking the right network for your brand/campaign

Do not treat social networks as the new online gold rush

Application-based advertising

The challenge of branded applications

Twitter: a rising advertising channel?

The case for mobile advertising

Mobile has a lot to offer

But the market is still very modest

Building a stronger commercial framework

The iPhone effect: will it work its magic on mobile advertising?

Cross-platform advertising

The three-screen dream has not come true

Mass search starts to fragment

Semantics support the spread of category search

Digital advertising formats get richer

Online video is the most commonly viewed of the rich media

Rich media driving higher consumer engagement

Where next for digital advertising metrics?

Targeting and privacy issues are coming to a head

Deep packet inspection in context

An ongoing debate rising to a head

Opt-out is not really putting the user in control

But attention profiling might do

Regulatory bodies are circling behavioural targeting

The prospects for digital advertising in the recession

Online advertising: a glimmer in the recession gloom

No surprises on the revenue drivers

Mobile advertising will struggle but not die

List of Tables

Table 1: Internet advertising market shares
Table 2: Total advertising expenditure by medium ($ millions)

List of Figures

Figure 1: Digital advertising value chain before reconfiguration
Figure 2: Digital advertising value chain reconfiguration
Figure 3: The ad exchange relationship web
Figure 4: The changing face of web content and consumption
Figure 5: Social network segmentation
Figure 6: Potential mobile advertising channels
Figure 7: Digital advertising formats by richness
Figure 8: Last ad wins 100% CPA credit

To order this report:

High Growth Forecast in Digital Advertising

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0128279/Reportlinker-Adds-New-dynamics-in-digital-advertising.html

Ixquick launches new, easier-to-remember name for its website

NEW YORK & BRUSSELS – “Start protecting your privacy. Start searching with Startpage.”

That’s the new slogan for Ixquick, the Web search engine that is internationally recognized for having the best privacy practices in the business. Ixquick launches Startpage.com (http://www.startpage.com) to give its users a new easier-to-remember way to access its established search services.

“For years, privacy experts have praised Ixquick for our outstanding policies, but some people found our name hard to spell,” explains Ixquick CEO Robert Beens. “With Startpage, people can get the same great features they know and love from Ixquick with a name that’s easier to use.”

The Ixquick.com website will remain online in addition to the new Startpage.com option. Both websites are powered by the same underlying search technology and are covered by the same certified privacy policies and practices.

“These two websites are almost identical and offer the same great search results. The only real difference is the name,” says Beens. “Whether people prefer to go to Startpage.com or Ixquick.com, they can search with equal confidence, knowing that their privacy is protected.”

Ixquick has earned a passionate following of Internet users who are concerned about keeping their searches private. All other major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, record every search query made through their websites and link them to the user’s IP address and cookies — a practice that has come under fire from both privacy and government groups recently.

Ixquick is the only major search engine that guarantees not to record IP addresses or record people’s searches. The company backs up that guarantee with third-party certification, and has been awarded the prestigious European Privacy Seal for adherence to exemplary privacy standards. In addition, Ixquick does not use so-called “tracking cookies,” and it is the only major search engine supporting HTTPS, a security feature that prevents data from being eavesdropped upon as it moves across the Internet.

Ixquick got its name in the 1990′s when company founder and current technology architect David Bodnick sought a way to represent both intelligence and speed. “I chose the ‘i’ in Ixquick to represent intelligence, the ‘x’ for ‘times,’ and the ‘quick’ for speed,” he explains. “People appreciate the fact that we’re not only the world’s most private search engine, but our results are smart and fast, too.”

“After more than a decade of providing top-quality search under the Ixquick name, we’re excited to now introduce Startpage,” said Beens. “Concerns about privacy have attracted many new users to our website lately and we want to make it easy for people to find us and spread the word.”

Ixquick will launch a new campaign to raise awareness about the Startpage.com website into English-speaking markets this month.

About Startpage (by Ixquick)

Startpage by Ixquick is an award-winning search engine with an industry leading privacy policy. Founded in New York in 1998, Ixquick has developed a passionate following among computer users concerned about privacy and security. Further information on Ixquick, including details about the company’s exemplary data-handling practices, can be found at www.ixquick.com.

Leading Ad Technology Providers + Yahoo!’s Reach and Targeting = Greater ROI

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! announced two display advertising solutions for marketers as part of a new partner program designed to significantly improve campaign performance by marrying Yahoo!’s massive reach and targeting capabilities with leading third-party advertising technologies. By bringing together Yahoo!’s knowledge and understanding of its audience with third-party Smart Ad technologies from Teracent and Tumri, Yahoo! believes it’s offering an open and unmatched solution for reaching consumers with customized messages.

Yahoo!’s new Smart Ads program will help marketers to develop Smart Ad campaigns quickly and execute them at scale across personal computers and mobile phones in North America. Yahoo! will consider expanding the program to international markets in the future.

Smart Ad campaigns use ad-optimization technology to create a near-limitless variety of creative executions through a combination of offers, colors, images and messaging in real time. These combinations can be finely tuned to match customized messages with users, helping marketers to find the right ad for the right set of users and the right time. Testing of this initiative has already helped advertisers significantly improve campaign performance based on a variety of metrics, including click performance, conversion and overall return on investment.

For example, Yahoo! and Tumri worked with Hewlett-Packard to create a Smart Ad campaign that generated more than 20,000 unique creative experiences, reaching more than 140 million US users. This campaign documented a return on ad spend that was more than 20 times higher than their traditional display campaigns. HP has developed separate Smart Ad campaigns with Yahoo! and Teracent, also producing higher results than traditional campaigns.

“The ability to run a display advertising campaign that can match the ROI of my search marketing spend is a potentially game-changing proposition,” said Catherine Paschkewitz, director of demand generation, HP Direct. “The Smart Ad solution has enabled us to increase our ROI by reaching the right set of users with the right message.”

Smart Ads Start with Insights

Because Smart Ad campaigns are most effective when developed with rich consumer insights, Yahoo! can deliver effective campaigns that move consumers from awareness to action. Nearly 150 million people spent more than 43 billion total minutes on Yahoo! sites last month1, providing unmatched opportunities for Yahoo! to work with marketers to develop effective and customized Smart Ad campaigns.

“Other publishers will offer so-called smart ad campaigns, but if it’s not running on the Yahoo! Network, it’s not as smart as it could be,” said David Zinman, vice-president and general manager, display advertising at Yahoo!. “We’re giving marketers the opportunity to reach consumers with customized ads on the PC and mobile Internet, and given the high performance of these campaigns in initial testing, it’s as if we’ve put performance marketing on steroids.”

Mobile Smart Ads

Yahoo! will also soon offer Smart Ads technology to mobile advertisers through its partnership with Teracent. As with the PC offering, advertisers will be able to customize creative to individual users in real time. Smart Ads on mobile phones will be especially valuable to marketers, offering additional factors such as location, time of day, and even specialty attributes like local weather, to tailor messages to users on the go. Yahoo! will offer mobile Smart Ad technology at scale for marketers.

The new program will also allow Yahoo! to expand its current Smart Ad offering to advertisers across all categories. Yahoo plans to continue adding new Smart Ad program partners that will be certified by Yahoo! over time.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com.

Yahoo! has been an industry leader on privacy for over a decade. Yahoo! offers clear and prominent privacy notices that are accessible to consumers on every page of the Yahoo! network. In addition it provides consumers the ability to opt-out (and remain persistently opted out) of customized advertising both on our network and on our partner sites. This choice is offered through easy to find links in our Privacy Center and via the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) website. Yahoo!’s consumer-friendly privacy policy can be accessed at http://privacy.yahoo.com where you can learn more about privacy innovations at Yahoo!.

About Teracent Corporation

Teracent offers marketers the unique prospect of providing “intelligent display advertising.” Teracent’s self-learning platform improves campaign performance over time by leveraging aggregate data to provide advertising that is most relevant to each individual consumer at each stage of the sales funnel. Teracent enables agencies and brand marketers to engage customers on an individual basis while maintaining total control and insight into their marketing investment. Quite simply, we make your media perform better. Call us or visit www.teracent.com to find out more.

About Tumri

Tumri is a leading provider of dynamic display advertising solutions. Based in Mountain View, CA, Tumri (www.tumri.com) has developed an innovative advertising platform that creates a highly dynamic and interactive advertising experience. The Tumri solution – the AdPod – enables advertisers to craft highly targeted marketing messages to consumers on-the-fly. To learn more about Tumri visit www.tumri.com.

1 comScore MediaMetrix, US, April 2009

Industry’s First Roadmap for Realizing Platform’s Advertising Potential

NEW YORK – Social media allows consumers to interact with brands and become marketing messengers themselves—leading to the transformation of what was once a one-way communication from brands to consumers into a two-way, ongoing conversation. To define the key elements of social advertising and showcase best practices for consumer control and privacy, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of “Social Advertising Best Practices,” the next step in the IAB’s ongoing efforts to build the advertising infrastructure of social media.

It provides publishers, agencies and marketers with recommendations for the successful execution of social advertising campaigns. It was announced at the IAB’s Social Media Marketplace in New York, a conference that brings together industry-leading advertisers, publishers and platforms to tackle big issues and provide real-world, real-time solutions for leveraging social media.

“Social Advertising Best Practices” includes:

* Key terms and definitions of the elements of a social ad and how social advertising differs from other online display advertising
* A library of examples of distinct advertising creative executions for a variety of marketing messages
* Recommendations for consumer policies on opt-in and opt-out procedures
* Privacy guidelines for publishers, agencies and marketers regarding data gathering, consumer disclosure and usage of consumer information.

“We have inventoried the vast array of resources available in social media and created a guide that publishers, marketers and agencies can use to build powerful dialogues between consumers and brands,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “This document is an excellent introduction to the conversation economy—where consumers have more ways to engage than ever.”

“Social media is one of the areas that our clients are most interested in, based on the audience size and high level of engagement. It is also one of the most transparent brand and consumer connection points that we have ever faced in marketing,” said Curt Hecht, President, VivaKi Nerve Center “The work of the IAB’s UGC & Social Media Committee will assist in removing a level of complexity in bringing brands and people together.”

“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. “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.”

This document can be found on the IAB website at: http://www.iab.net/socialads

The IAB recently announced “Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions,” a resource that defines specific metrics for each type of social media. This document can be found at: http://www.iab.net/socialmetrics

About the IAB’s User-Generated Content & Social Media Committee:

The User-Generated Content & Social Media Committee of the IAB is comprised of over 150 member companies dedicated to helping develop and expand the user-generated content space as a viable advertising platform. The committee works to educate marketers and agencies on the strength of user-generated content and social media as a marketing vehicle. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/member_center/councils_committees_working_groups/committees/user_generated_content_social_media_committee

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

DENVER – Location based services (LBS) specialist Useful Networks announces it has earned the Gold Award for best location-based advertising (LBA) technology with its AdWhere™ Platform at the 2009 Mobile Advertising and Marketing Awards.

The AdWhere platform uses location technology in mobile networks to target consumers with location-specific advertising on their mobile devices. LBA increases the value of mobile advertising by improving targeting and facilitating deeper levels of consumer engagement.

Useful Networks also published the results of two large-scale trials, which demonstrated the effectiveness of location based advertising over standard mobile advertising. The trial campaigns ran in cooperation with a Tier 1 U.S. Carrier and were designed to allow users to find the nearest quick serve restaurant or car dealership by clicking on a mobile banner ad.

Both trials involved two separate call-to-action banner ads enticing customers to find local store locations. The trial-group banner ad asked users to “opt-in” to find the nearest stores using their current location. The control group was required to manually enter postal codes to find nearby store locations. The LBA trials showed that location-enabled campaigns increased Store Finder conversion rates by 300 percent in the quick serve restaurant trial and 1,000 percent in the automotive dealership trial.

“Our goal was to show that location-enablement increases brand exposure by amplifying conversion rates, allowing brands to reach the right people with the right message at the right time in the right place – increasing the likelihood of consumer response,” said Useful Networks CEO, Brian Levin.

“Our mission is to make location a core element of the mobile marketing experience, while protecting the privacy of the consumer and enforcing the policies set forth by the mobile operators and regulators. These trials are conclusive evidence that location adds measurable value to mobile advertising campaigns, and we’re proud to be officially recognized by Visiongain’s MAMA Awards,” added Levin.

Details on the trials: https://mmaglobal.com/studies/groundbreaking-lba-trials-prove-effectiveness-useful-networks.

More information on the MAMA Awards: http://mobithinking.com/blog/mobile-advertising-and-marketing-awards-winners-include-turkcell-admob.

Information on Useful Networks: http://www.useful-networks.com.

About Useful Networks
Founded in July 2006, Useful Networks powers cross-carrier location aggregation for both carriers and content providers. Their PlaceWhere™ platform reduces costs, time to market and complexity in launching location aware products. Useful Networks is a privately held subsidiary of Liberty Media. For more information, visit http://www.libertymedia.com.

Public Affairs and Political Veterans Develop Proprietary Attitudinal Targeting Platform and Ad Network That Reaches Web Users with Common Issue Positions; Backed by Powerhouse Bi-Partisan Investors

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Resonate Networks announced the first online ad network built for political and public affairs advertising. Resonate’s ad network is powered by its proprietary Attitudinal Targeting platform that, for the first time, provides public affairs and political advertisers with the ability to identify, persuade, motivate and organize like-minded audiences online and drive them towards an actionable step—whether it is joining a campaign, contributing to a cause, or supporting an initiative.

Resonate was founded by Public Affairs veteran John Brady and former White House Political Director Sara Taylor as a way to address the limitations of targeting Web users with only demographics and purchase behavior. By giving public affairs, political and corporate advertisers the ability to pinpoint and target online audiences based on their attitudes and beliefs on a wide variety of key public policy issues, Attitudinal Targeting was envisioned as an innovative way to target advocacy and issue campaigns to Web users with common issue positions.

Resonate also announced it raised a $2 million Series A investment round from strategic investors representing many segments of the public affairs market, as well as notable figures from both sides of the political spectrum, including Alex Gage, Harold Ickes, Rich and Linda Tarplin, and Steve McMahon.

“Quite simply, targeting based on attitudes and issue positions is the next generation in online targeting,” said Harold Ickes, a leading Democratic Strategist and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton. “The big challenge has always been segmenting audiences based not just on who they are, where they live and what they earn, but what they believe, how influential they are and the degree to which they are willing to engage on an issue.”

Resonate’s Attitudinal Targeting Platform

Because the critical correlation between Web users’ attitudes and where to find them online has not previously existed, advertisers have been challenged to reach the influential segments of Web users most likely to engage on their side of an issue. Developed by world-class research and online industry experts, Resonate’s Attitudinal Targeting platform incorporates extensive and proprietary algorithms, data modeling and analysis to map Web users’ attitudes and issue positions against their online behavior. Attitudinal data that advertisers can leverage include:

* Issue interest and position: Targeting based on the specific side of an issue of interest, or the key category of ‘persuadables’ on the fence about an issue. Resonate has current coverage of key issues such as: energy, global warming, healthcare, product safety, sustainability, defense/military, financial services, foreign policy, legal, pharmaceutical, taxes and trade.
* Issue orientation: Targeting based on issue themes, such as targeting supporters of government regulation, or those who generally oppose additional taxes.
* Engagement level: Targeting highly influential individuals with a history of taking action related to an issue of interest, such as the environment or entitlement reform.
* Partisanship and vote history: Ability to combine online audience issue interests with political attributes such as partisanship, ideology, and voting frequency.
* Media consumption patterns: Using media consumption patterns, such as frequency or type of media consumed, to inform advertising buys.

“For public affairs advertisers, the targeting possibilities are limitless when it comes to identifying, persuading or motivating high-quality online audiences for an issue-based or branding campaign,” said Taylor. “For example, campaigns can now reach and engage mothers with children under 16 who support food industry regulation to reduce childhood obesity, or identify influentials who regularly watch CNN or Fox News and oppose government taking a more direct role in the healthcare system.”

The Resonate Online Ad Network

Using the results of its targeting research, Resonate has established a growing network of hundreds of web site publishers whose audiences correlate to Resonate Networks’ attitudinal segments. Based on an advertiser’s goals, Resonate leverages this network to develop customized online campaigns featuring the optimal mix of sites that reach the advertiser’s attitudinal segments in the most cost-effective manner. Resonate delivers customized ad targeting and online placement packages for display advertising: banner ads, rich media, and video ads.

Resonate and Privacy

Resonate Networks never collects, stores or analyzes any personally identifiable information (PII), and the firm’s online targeting model was developed by world-class research and online industry experts with an emphasis on protecting privacy.

Resonate’s Leadership Team

Resonate was founded in 2008 by executives who have spent decades operating at the intersection of advocacy, technology, advertising and politics—all of whom were unified by a shared frustration with the inherent inefficiencies and limitations of traditional online audience targeting.

“Resonate Networks has developed an entirely new way to target ads online that is much more relevant to organizations engaged in issue advocacy and image advertising,” said Bryan Gernert, Chief Executive Officer, Resonate Networks. “For online advertisers, the benefits of Resonate’s online ad network are simple—online ad conversion rates three to five times higher than those of traditional ad networks plus the ability to reach a higher quality online audience at a reduced cost.”

Resonate has eclipsed seven figures in revenue after just five months of operation and currently works with a client roster featuring some of the nation’s most respected public affairs agencies, corporations and advocacy groups. Resonate’s management team includes:

* Bryan Gernert, CEO – formerly SVP and GM of the Americas for Cybertrust
* Andy Hunn, COO – formerly VP, Corporate Business Development at Cybertrust
* Nick Tabbal, VP of Research – formerly SVP, Media at comScore
* John Brady, Founder and Chairman – co-founded The Direct Impact Company (acquired by Young and Rubicam, now part of WPP)
* Sara Taylor, Founder and Vice Chairman – formerly White House Political Director during the George W. Bush Administration

“Everyone knows that demographics and purchase behavior only get you so far in online targeting, but there haven’t been any alternatives,” added Steve McMahon, a well-known media consultant and strategic political advisor. “By enabling targeting based on the audience’s attitudes and issue positions, Resonate has introduced a true game changer that will enhance the efficacy of online campaigns.”

Resonate’s Investors

* Alexander Gage – leading micro-targeting expert who helped lead voter targeting effort during President Bush’s 2004 Presidential campaign; CEO and Founder of TargetPoint Consulting
* Harold Ickes – leading Democratic strategist and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton
* Steve McMahon – media consultant and strategic advisor to Democratic candidates who helped to direct Internet strategy for the Howard Dean Presidential campaign
* Rich Tarplin – political strategist who served nearly 20 years in U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate
* Linda Tarplin – leading healthcare consultant who held senior positions in the White House and Department of Health and Human Services under two Republican Presidents

About Resonate Networks

Alexandria, Virginia-based Resonate Networks is the first online advertising network to feature an Attitudinal Targeting platform that correlates Web users’ attitudes, issue positions, levels of engagement, ideology and partisanship with their online behavior. Resonate’s Attitudinal Targeting enables public affairs organizations, advocacy groups, non-profits, grassroots operations, political advertisers and corporate advertisers to target and reach online audiences more precisely and cost-effectively than traditional ad networks. Online advertisers and online publishers can find additional information at http://www.resonatenetworks.com.

Yesterday’s post in the Google AdSense global blog* confirms what we all thought it would happen: that Google will finally make a business decision to leverage their unrivaled wealth of information coming from their search capabilities and attempt to implement a form of BT (Behavioral Targeting) to unsuspecting users.

Claiming to “driving monetization with ads that reach the right audience“, here’s what the official announcement says:

“Over the next few months we’ll start offering interest-based advertising to a limited number of advertisers as part of a beta, and expand the offering later in 2009. Whether the advertiser’s goal is to drive brand awareness or increase responses to their ads, these capabilities can help expand the success of their campaigns and should increase your earnings as advertiser participation increases.”

All’s good and well, only, as with many other Google initiatives that fall into the gray area of privacy intrusion, this is an opt-out feature. That means that the aforementioned users will be subjected to behavioral targeting of the Google ads they may bump into any given site – and yes, I do realize the irony of having a certain ad slot right here – unless they proactively seek a way out of it.

Here’s how it works: “To develop interest categories, we’ll recognize the types of webpages users visit across the AdSense network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we’ll add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category. You can visit the Help Center to learn more about how interest categories will be developed and your associated account settings. [...] by visiting the new Ads Preferences Manager, users can see what interest categories we think they fall into, or add and remove categories themselves. The Ads Preferences Manager can be found by clicking on most “Ads by Google” links you see on Google ads throughout the web.”

Going back a little while, do you remember the roll-out of the “web search history” across Google accounts? Again, this was an opt-out feature – that has, privacy wise, the same approach as the current rolling of behavioral targeting. One would hope that, having already opted out of it (“No, I most certainly don’t want you to observe and store the URLs I visit!“), common sense would prevent future invasions from happening. Clearly not the case: behavioral targeting is active even if you surf while logged into a Google account with web history deactivated.

While it’s quite obvious what drove this initiative to life in the first place, I really dislike the approach: nobody should be subjected to tracking and behavioral targeting unless they have specifically agreed to it! While you, readers, may be knowledgeable enough to avoid this and stay updated on the online ad industry news and practices, the average internet user is not. Considering the extremely wide reach of Google’s content network, one’s chances to come across sites carrying Google ads – and be tracked and targeted – are very, very high.

Google calls this “privacy innovations“. I call it “deception“. What do you call it?

*http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html

Fully-integrated, End-to-End Solution Simplifies Contract Management for Web publishers

NEW YORK – 24/7 Real Media, Inc., the leading global digital marketing company, introduced Open AdStream® with fully integrated end-to–end contract management functionality powered by FIVIA. This functionality will integrate seamlessly with Open AdStream to offer publishers around the world a powerful all-in-one ad management solution.

Open AdStream streamlines the advertising management process while the addition of contract management automates workflow for publishers every step of the way, from sales to billing. With the added efficiency, Web publishers can now maximize resources and consolidate advertising management, ultimately increasing revenue and decreasing costs.

Contract management provides publishers with financial workflow including automated proposals, approvals, booking and invoicing order processes. It completely integrates and synchronizes with CRM, inventory management and accounting systems, and reduces inefficiencies by enabling publishers to fully manage their ad campaigns in one, easy-to-use interface. Publishers also benefit from comprehensive reporting such as extensive revenue-based reports, reducing inaccuracies and expediting business processes.

“Our contract management software enables publishers to manage sales, inventory, trafficking, billing and revenues based on ads served,” said Cyril Moynot, Managing Director of FIVIA. “The addition of FIVIA’s contract management functionality to Open AdStream delivers greater efficiency and eases the complications of billing and revenue management.”

“To increase efficiency and accuracy, publishers require a full suite solution to replace the multiple technology tools needed to manage each component of their advertising campaigns,” said Nicolle Pangis, Vice President, Product Management, Global Media and Technology for 24/7 Real Media, Inc. “After an extensive review of the market, we have chosen to partner with FIVIA to further enhance Open AdStream’s capabilities, providing clients with an industry leading comprehensive ad management solution.”

Open AdStream is 24/7 Real Media’s proprietary, award-winning ad serving and campaign management platform, for the targeting and delivery of ads to their Web sites. Open AdStream combines the powerful business intelligence of Web analytics and behavioral targeting with a world-class management platform, delivering all digital formats across all digital platforms.

FIVIA is an established premier provider of automated inventory, order and billing management software for the media and advertising industry. The company offers a full range of outsourced ad operations solutions, providing world-class brands with technology services to efficiently manage their businesses and improve their bottom line.

For more information on 24/7 Real Media and Open AdStream, visit www.247realmedia.com.

About 24/7 Real Media, Inc.

24/7 Real Media, Inc., a WPP company is the leading global digital marketing company, empowering advertisers and publishers to engage their target audiences with greater precision, transparency and ROI. Using its award winning ad serving, targeting, tracking and analytics platform, powerful search marketing technology and global network of specialized Web sites, the company has turned the art of reaching audiences across virtually any digital medium into a measurable science. The company is headquartered in New York, with 18 offices in 12 countries throughout North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, please visit www.247realmedia.com.

24/7 Real Media: The Science of Digital Marketing.

24/7 Real Media is a member of the NAI and adheres to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC. These principles are designed to help ensure Internet user privacy. For more information about online data collection associated with ad serving, including online preference marketing and an opportunity to opt-out of 24/7 Real Media cookies, go to: www.networkadvertising.org.

BURLINGTON, Mass. – Burst Media, (www.BurstMedia.com), a leading provider of advertising representation, services and technology to independent Web Publishers, released the results from a survey it conducted about online privacy. The survey was administered to over 4,000 web users with the purpose of better understanding how privacy impacts a web user’s Internet experience, as well as its impact on advertisers. In addition to finding that privacy is a significant concern amongst web users, the survey also revealed that concern increases with the age of the respondent.

The vast majority (80.1%) of web surfers indicated concern about the privacy of their personal information such as age, gender, income and web surfing habits. Concern about privacy is prevalent among all age segments, and increased with the respondent’s age from 67.3% among respondents 18-24 years to 85.7% of respondents 55 years and older.

“Online privacy is a prevailing concern for web surfers,” said Chuck Moran, VP of Marketing for Burst Media. “Advertisers must take concrete actions to mitigate consumers’ privacy concerns and at the same time continue to deliver their message as effectively as possible. 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.”

The survey also 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 web site they visit collects information on how they navigate and interact with it.

Also of note was the revelation that personal privacy is not something people are willing to give up for more relevant advertising. Based strictly on the description “advertisements more relevant to interest,” only one-in-five (23.2%) respondents would not mind if non-personally identifiable information was collected if ads were better targeted.

To view the full copy of Burst’s Online Insights report on privacy please visit http://www.burstmedia.com/research/current.asp.

About Burst Media

An online media and technology company founded in 1995, Burst Media (www.BurstMedia.com) is a leading provider of advertising representation, services and technology to independent Web Publishers. Burst Media enables advertisers to reach finely segmented, engaged consumers as they visit Burst’s extensive number of interest-based sub-channels. Through its Burst Network and Burst Direct units, the company represents one of the broadest and deepest offerings of interest-based websites online. Burst also markets its ad management platform, adConductor™, which empowers content websites, online ad networks, and web portals to manage the complete process of ad sales and service. Burst Media is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the United States and in London, UK. For more information, visit www.BurstMedia.com or call 781.272.5544.

New Ways to Improve and Measure Ad Performance, Heightened Privacy Concerns and Online Video Are Trends to Watch

SAN FRANCISCO – 1020 Placecast, the first online advertising solution to target highly sought-after audiences using location-based information across the Web, mobile, Wi-Fi networks and email, announced interactive advertising trends to watch in 2009. Trends to watch include better metrics to understand effectiveness, increased concerns about user privacy and mainstream video adoption by online advertisers.

Looking back, 2008 marked a turning point in online advertising. Despite the slowing of growth in overall advertising spending, online has finally achieved its place at the table in mainstream media plans and continues to prove its value relative to traditional media. It was also a year for increased public scrutiny of industry practices as the medium achieves scale and prominence with advertisers.

“The year ahead will be difficult in many respects, but also very exciting,” said Placecast CEO Alistair Goodman. “We expect marketers who need to do more with less will put pressure on agencies, media providers, publishers and measurement firms to deliver more value. At the same time, tough market conditions always produce new ways of solving old problems. We see big opportunities for advertisers to find new ways to drive better performance for their campaigns.”

Six key trends identified in this release are:

1. The value of user data is questionable.

2009 will mark the year advertisers begin to look for alternatives to collecting and mining user data to improve the performance of campaigns. For several years, online marketers have attempted to incorporate increasingly large amounts of user data into the marketing equation with the goal of improving targeting and performance. Unfortunately, advertiser reviews of this approach are nearly universal: “anticipointed.” We now find ourselves in wave 2.0 of this effort in which firms are undertaking predictive modeling, attempting to analyze even more data in order to predict behaviors. However, these efforts will continue to disappoint and 2009 will mark the year advertisers begin to look for and incorporate new, non-user data sources for improving the performance of campaigns.

2. The Web will be connected to the physical world.

Until recently, the Web was built to ignore physical location. Several recent developments make clear that, beginning in 2009, location will drive the next wave of innovation on the Web. These announcements include: Geode for Firefox, a plug-in that allows the popular browser to determine and share the user’s location; Google’s releases of Android, Chrome and the Gears Location API, all of which incorporate location data; Fire Eagle from Yahoo! for location data management; more than 500 iPhone applications now using GPS location data as a critical component; and the news that Microsoft Windows 7 will include location data at the operating-system level for any application. All of these innovations and others still to come will bring location information into the mainstream Web-browsing experience, providing users with a way to connect their online experience to the real world.

For advertisers, this trend presages a host of new services launching in 2009 using location in various ways. Initial, simple applications from marketers will include couponing and advertising to users in proximity to potential offerings of interest (such as stores, cafés, restaurants, etc.). More advanced approaches will apply this new trove of location data to improve relevance, understand consumer intent and profile audiences. In the long term, we can expect location data to be incorporated into search algorithms as another way of increasing relevance, and also into performance marketing, where better relevance will drive significant improvements in performance.

3. Heightened privacy concerns plant the seed for regulation.

2008 will certainly go down as a year of turmoil for data mining models like NebuAd and Adzilla, and also as a year that brought small victories for privacy advocates. A new administration in Washington will bring new FTC regulators, and a climate that favors more standards and regulation. Despite the proactive efforts of industry organizations like the IAB and the NAI, 2009 will kick off a wave of new discussions about the collection and application of user data, with the balance of power shifting away from the advertising industry and towards the user.

President-Elect Barack Obama’s selection of Tom Wheeler, former head of major wireless organization CTIA, as a technology adviser also indicates we can expect to see a particular emphasis on mobile technology for the new administration.

4. View-through metrics gain traction in the downturn.

Down economies focus more attention and diligence on understanding the drivers of performance for online campaigns. 2009 will see more mainstream adoption of view-through as a complement to traditional metrics like click-through. View-through (also referred to as post-impression measurement) is a method for gauging the impact of an ad that a user sees but does not click on. It works by recording the exposure of a user to a specific display ad, then measures when that user returns to the advertiser’s site in a later session.

View-through gives marketers an ability to attribute value to the many impressions they deliver which do not immediately trigger an action. With average click-through rates on display ads dropping below 0.1% on average, marketers are recognizing that view-through provides a more complete understanding of how campaigns really drive traffic, and how impressions lift brand metrics such as awareness, favorability and intent.

5. The accessibility of display ad inventory will increase dramatically.

The combination of a downturn in the economy and continued automation of media planning and buying tools means that buyers will have easy access to display inventory in 2009. Even as broad networks consolidate or compress, exchanges are providing easy access for buyers to find reach and efficiency. The major players, including Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, are capturing the largest share of available remnant inventory across their ad network offerings, and exchanges will continue to refine their operational and business models.

With the impressions themselves becoming ever more liquid and accessible through networks and exchanges, inventory value will be driven by services and technology. Next generation targeting approaches, which go beyond content and behavioral methods, will capture the attention of the buying community. Improved efficiency and valuable insights from reporting will give buyers the ability to focus media purchases even more efficiently over time.

6. Online video consumption will continue to grow.

In 2009, we will see significant increases in the online distribution and consumption of professionally-produced video content. This top tier video content will garner a majority of the video advertising spend. CPMs may contract slightly with broader distribution as audiences expect to find the content where they spend their time online. But with consumers in control and watching more video online, overall CPMs will remain quite healthy for video advertising in top content.

Several factors are fueling this trend: first, major advertisers are now thinking about online video at the creative stage and producing purpose-built material for the Web when they develop creative for TV. Secondly, production costs are also coming down, and we are beginning to see critical mass around a standard set of technologies and tools. Lastly, as more dollars migrate away from TV advertising because of the high cost, online video will become the beneficiary as it creates a similar immersive customer experience with TV and Hollywood appeal. Sites like Hulu provide TV-oriented brand advertisers with a captive audience – an example of why video will become a mainstream part of brand marketer advertising budgets in 2009.

About 1020 Placecast, Inc.

1020, Inc. is the developer and owner of Placecast™ Media, the first online advertising solution to target highly sought-after audiences using location-based information across the Web, mobile, and Wi-Fi. 1020’s groundbreaking Placecast service recently earned the company the “OnMedia Top 100” Award, given to game-changing companies in the marketing, branding, advertising, and PR industries. Current advertisers include Microsoft Windows Mobile, FedEx Kinko’s, Avis and Budget Rental Cars and Hyatt Hotels. 1020 is funded by Voyager Capital and Onset Ventures. For more information about Placecast, visit www.placecast.net.