Shutting off snoopy web ads

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This article was published 17/05/2012 (5171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — Canadians who get creeped out by web ads that seem to know a little too much about their personal habits should have access in the coming months to an opt-out tool.

IAB Canada, a non-profit association representing the digital marketing and advertising industry, is in negotiations with the Digital Advertising Alliance in the U.S. to adopt its self-regulating program, which is already in place south of the border.

A blue icon with a lower-case “i” denotes ads that are appearing because of behavioural advertising practices, based on a user’s past web history. The icon links to http://www.aboutads.info/, which includes an opt-out feature used by about 160 ad agencies, ad networks and companies, including American Express, AT&T, Bank of America, Dell, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo!

“They’re about two years ahead of us, so they’re looking at other things now and they’re moving onto mobile, etc. — but we have to get this in place in Canada first,” said outgoing IAB Canada president Paula Gignac. “It’ll certainly be, I don’t believe ,any later than (the third quarter) of 2012.”

Behavioural advertising is typically based on web browser “cookies,” files that reside on a user’s computer and contain information about usage history and habits. For example, visiting a website or launching a search about tourist sites in Montreal could trigger more travel-related ads as you browse the web. Advertisers say it’s a good way to get relevant ads to users, but many feel the practice is an invasion of privacy, even if the ad companies don’t receive personal information through cookies.

Gignac said there’s been no resistance within the industry as IAB Canada has moved closer to allowing users to opt out of behavioural tracking.

“There wasn’t any pushback at all,” she said. “Advertisers, agencies, publishers, networks realized the consumer is in control and they have to be good to the consumer.”

In December, Canada’s privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, released guidelines for the advertising industry saying Canadians must have an easy way to say no to behavioural ads. She called the U.S. opt-out system and the move to implementing it here “a very, very positive development.”

“A huge majority of Canadians think that Internet companies should ask for their permission to be tracked online, and so part of our behavioural advertising initiative was to respond to this and say very clearly how the privacy law should apply online in these situations,” Stoddart said.

“So we’re saying it’s up to those who are using tracking devices of any kind to ask for the consumer’s consent.”

Websites typically ask for consent to track user behaviour, but those requests are often buried within the long pages of privacy policies or terms and conditions.

“We know privacy policies and terms and conditions are unfortunately not written always as clearly as they should,” Stoddart said, but added many users appear to realize the tracking practice is going on.

The latest versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox web browsers have do-not-track features, while Google has an optional download for its Chrome browser called “Keep My Opt-Outs.”

— The Canadian Press