• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, November 10, 2011

Have you ever found a privacy policy that was as easy to understand and interact with as an e-commerce page? I haven’t, and neither has Federal Trade Commission chair Jon Leibowitz. At Ad:tech in New York City this past Tuesday, I shared a panel on privacy protection entitled “Whose Data is it Anyway?” Leibowitz has been a vocal proponent for many years about the need for digital media companies and marketers to do a better job of communicating about privacy-related issues with their users.

Leibowitz has long advocated for digital companies to build “privacy protection by design” into their products and business models from the beginning. He has also been a strong advocate for industry-led self-regulation, preferring initiatives like the Digital Advertising Alliance, the self-regulatory group created by organizations like the IAB, AAAA, ANA and DMA, over commission-led enforcement actions with resources that could be better spent on more villainous consumer fraud cases.

Tuesday, Leibowitz’s keynote, which preceded our panel, focused on why it’s in no one’s interest to let privacy protection issues spoil the “cyber-party” that is benefiting so many, from consumers to marketers to media companies.

He made a final point that really hit home with me, noting that because of smart and intuitive interface design and great marketing, his daughter is able to go to a retail website and, in a matter of only two clicks, find, research, and buy a piece of clothing that she wants. However, when it comes to finding, reading, navigating and understanding privacy policies, particularly when it comes to opting out of data collection, it is a very confusing journey that can take innumerable clicks. Leibowitz said that one website that an FTC intern found required 109 clicks to get through the entire privacy policy.

And we call ourselves marketers? Leibowitz’s challenge was to apply the same kind of marketing expertise we create for a consumer experience when we’re communicating our privacy policies. We now tend to be playing defense, with the clarity of our privacy policies controlled much more by lawyers than marketers, but we can change that. We can actually have policies make sense to users if we really try. And let's make the process easier, too. For example, let them opt out for more than 10 days, and don’t allow sites or ad serving companies to circumvent the cookie deletion with flash cookies.

Beyond our policies there is the important job of teaching consumers that digital marketing and advertising are paying the bills for all the great free content and entertainment online. Folks need to know that there is a cover charge. Our mission is to make ads more relevant and interesting by capturing and leveraging anonymous data. Let them know we are their partners in presenting free content, not diabolical enemies out to hurt them by abusing data collection fundamentals. 

What do you think? Time to apply some real marketing skills to our privacy policies?