To educate consumers and provide them with resources to help manage their privacy online, the Interactive Advertising Bureau 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 info, it hasn’t been as effective at explaining how it all works to the average person.
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 campaign launches with commitments of more than 500 million online ad 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.
Privacy Matters and its accompanying website, www.iab.net/privacymatters, were designed by Schematic, a WPP company. The effort guides 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, IAB CEO. “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 campaign is part of an ongoing, industry-wide effort to develop more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral ad practices by increasing transparency, developing ubiquitous consumer choice mechanisms, improving data security and advancing consumer awareness of online privacy issues.
In July 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.
