RE: tracking-ISSUE-93: Should 1st parties be able to degrade a user experience or charge money for content based on DNT? [Tracking Definitions and Compliance]

Matthias, 

Let me try to answer these questions as best I can (others are welcome to add or correct).  Rather than take them serially, I think it's easier to use a real world example to clarify.  

First, I am not trying to produce an "impact assessment" for the DNT program.  To do so you would have to understand the scope of the program on the marketplace, the user adoption rate, and the economic impact of each user who activates the DNT header.  We are at the very beginning of the W3C process so trying to predict the adoption rate (each browser's implementation will greatly determine this as a DNT option listed on a privacy tools menu will not elicit as many activations as a "DNT" button on the browser toolbar) or economic impact is speculative at best.  

However, I think we can better project the potential scope of the program and it is important for this group to understand what percentage of the marketplace they might be touching, which is why I introduced the IAB survey and the >80% figure.  Many people, the press and Congress included, usually refer to an eMarketer figure of around $1 Billion in OBA.  That figure is accurate if you ask ad sales teams what they are currently selling as targeted advertising to marketers, but it is not relevant to the discussion of potential regulations (like the FTC's definition of third party OBA) or data collection programs (like the W3C process).

On to my example, nearly every ad campaign utilizes frequency capping.  This is the practice of ensuring a consumer does not see the same ad 100 times a day.  A marketer uses capping on their campaigns because if a user has seen 10 GM truck ads and not clicked on any of them today, then GM wants to show them a car ad instead.  A network utilizes capping because if they've served 10 truck ads to a user today and they haven't clicked on any of the ads, then they might want to send them an ad for an iPad instead.  This is good for the marketer, network, publisher, and even the consumer.  Frequency capping requires the dropping of a cookie and the tracking of that consumer over time and across websites.  If we are talking about allowing consumers to stop data collection, then we could very well cover practices such as frequency capping.  If that is the case then the scope of the program would certainly cover well over 80% of the marketplace.

It is worth noting that my example only looks at data collection for advertising purposes.  A program that covers all data collection would necessarily have an even greater scope than what I've described.

Mike Zaneis
SVP and GC
IAB
________________________________________
From: public-tracking-request@w3.org [public-tracking-request@w3.org] on behalf of Matthias Schunter [mts@zurich.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 6:50 AM
To: public-tracking@w3.org
Subject: Re: tracking-ISSUE-93: Should 1st parties be able to degrade a user      experience or charge money for content based on DNT? [Tracking  Definitions     and Compliance]

Hi Mike,


thanks a lot for the data.

Some clarifying questions:

On 10/20/2011 9:21 PM, Mike Zaneis wrote:
> 2.  "If we use a broad definition of tracking, similar to the FTC's definition,
then we will be potentially impacting over 80% of the online ad market."

Do I understand correctly
 a) That 80% of companies are controlled (partially) by data that
    partially is collected in a way that falls under the FTC tracking
    definition? This may just mean that
    currently they cannot distinguish tracking-based data from
    other data and therefore will be counted in the 80%?
 b) This does not mean that 80% of campaigns would need to be changed
    if a small subset of users choose not to be tracked?
 c) This does not mean that not displaying those adds to a small
    subset of users who choose not to be tracked would not
    affect the rest of the campaigns?


Regards,
matthias


>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-tracking-request@w3.org [mailto:public-tracking-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Tom Lowenthal
> Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 7:54 PM
> To: public-tracking@w3.org
> Subject: Re: tracking-ISSUE-93: Should 1st parties be able to degrade a user experience or charge money for content based on DNT? [Tracking Definitions and Compliance]
>
> Mike, I seem to be a little behind on my ad-industry insider baseball, because you've thrown out a few things that I haven't heard about before
> now:
>
> 1. publishers banning users who user ad-blockers, 2. what you mean by "impacting 80% of the online ad market", and 3. the fundamental rights of corporations.
>
> I'm sure that there are others on the list who are similarly behind the curve, so it'd be great to get some background/links on this.
>
> On 10/19/2011 01:09 PM, Mike Zaneis wrote:
>> I agree with JC.  Some companies already block users from their sites
>> who use ad blocking technologies because it fundamentally impairs
>> their ability to monetize their content.  If we use a broad definition
>> of tracking, similar to the FTC's definition, then we will be
>> potentially impacting over 80% of the online ad market.
>> Publishers and content owners have every right, in fact have
>> fundamental rights, to offer their goods and services as they see fit.
>
>
>
>
>
>

--
Dr. Matthias Schunter, MBA
IBM Research - Zurich, Switzerland
Ph. +41 (44) 724-8329,  schunter(at)acm.org
PGP 989A A3ED 21A1 9EF2 B005 8374 BE0E E10D
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Received on Friday, 21 October 2011 12:36:19 UTC