IAB Debuts Privacy Education Campaign

The US-based Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has launched a campaign, 'Privacy Matters', to educate consumers about online privacy.

Covering a broad range of media outlets, the move is part of an ongoing, industry-wide effort to develop more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices - including greater transparency, wider consumer choice, improved data security and better consumer awareness of online privacy issues.

The campaign, which follows pressure from legislators who have expressed increasing concern about consumers' lack of understanding of behavioral advertising, uses attention grabbing headlines to guide consumers to its web site, www.iab.net/privacymatters , which holds in-depth information, resources and tools designed to help them protect their online privacy and discuss their concerns.

One ad bears the legend 'Advertising is Creepy' - mousing over this brings the message that companies don't use 'personally identifiable information' to establish which ads to display, and clicking on it takes viewers to a landing page of privacy information. The latter includes the controversial claims that neither cookies nor IP address logs allow personal identification: disputed by advocates such as Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy who point to examples where search and location information has been sufficient to find individuals.

Randall Rothenberg, The IAB's President and CEO, says the media partners and agencies involved in the campaign donated their time and resources for free, and states: '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.'

'Privacy Matters' will run throughout 2010 with the goal being at least 1 billion impressions served.

The IAB was founded in 1996, is headquartered in New York City and is online at www.iab.net .

In a separate devlopment yesterday, action group the Center for Democracy & Technology launched their own privacy campaign, 'Take Back Your Privacy', aiming to persuade users to lobby Congress for online privacy legislation.