• by Mark Naples , September 16, 2004

I believe it was about a year ago when some online newspapers introduced an innovation that new visitors noticed online. Whenever a new user visited Washingtonpost.com for example, and clicked on a story link, they were taken to a screen that asked their year of birth, their gender, and their ZIP code.

This (very) brief intrusion was hailed as an innovation that helped the targeting of ads, doing so in the most transparent fashion. I thought it was a cool alternative, actually. And many other sites do it today to first-time visitors.

I was reminded of this last week, when the Ponemon Institute released the findings of a study which asserted that 66 percent of people would find "targeted" banner ads less annoying, and 52 percent would be more likely to respond to such an ad. The respondents were split on giving up personal information, however, with 45 percent willing to give personal info in exchange for targeted ads, and 55 percent desiring targeted ads without giving up personal data.

How much personal data? That's unclear. But the Online Publishers Association reported that the respondents had conflicting views on online advertising in general, with 60 percent calling banner ads "always annoying," but a majority said they were unwilling to pay for an ad blocker or content. "It shouldn't be surprising that consumers' economic interest outweigh their dislike of advertising," Dr. Larry Ponemon told ClickZ. "Ideally, consumers would like to not have any ads, but that's an irrational option. Short of that, they'd like to see targeted ads without giving up personally identifiable information."

The "2004 Survey on Internet Ads" revealed that 66 percent of those surveyed would find relevant ads less annoying, and that 52 percent would be more likely to respond to a relevant banner ad.

"This really goes against the conventional wisdom and shows that it is the irrelevant content of ads rather than the ads themselves that consumers object to," said Ponemon.

Of course, everything that the online newspapers asked for in the jump screens used by Washingtonpost.com and others is regarded as personally identifiable information (PII). But, even though I'm something of a privacy junkie myself, I never minded giving up any of this data. The Ponemon release reminded me of this, and it made me wonder just what kind of PII matters to most people - and just how much PII is needed for marketers to be able to target their ads precisely.

After all, how much PII is needed by behavioral targeting companies who measure session times, surfing habits, and clickstream data, in addition to other metrics? After all, if the Web is truly a proxy for special interest media, and a more precisely segmented proxy at that, does a user's name and mailing address matter as much as the other information being gathered? Of course it does for database marketers and other direct response. But, let's keep this to advertising.

What difference does additional PII make for targeting purposes? And just how few users care about providing limited PII like their age, gender and ZIP codes?

Do Revenue Science, Tacoda (and WhenU and Claria for that matter) target their ads across their networks based on individual's identities? Or, against where they point their browsers? I think we all know that most of the targeting of ads is based on browser movements, and I think we can all accept what Ross Fadner wrote in his MediaPost piece on the Ponemon release: the DoubleClick controversy of 2000, in which the company was accused of collecting PII and combining it with Web-surfing behavior, still resonates with privacy advocates.

In light of this, what responsibilities do we, as advertisers, publishers and technology providers, have to make the Internet safe for advertising - and for the people toward whom the ads are being targeted? This is the key question that will be addressed by six panelists in Monday's last session during the Internet Advertising World Conference being hosted by MediaPost and the IAB. http://www.i-adworld.com. The panelists are: Matt Blumberg, CEO, ReturnPath; Alan Chapell, President, Chapell Associates (which was a sponsor of the Ponemon study); D. Reed Freeman, Chief Privacy Officer, Claria Corporation; Roni Jenkins, Director of Communications; Marc Ryan, Senior Director Analysis, Nielsen//NetRatings; and Geoff Silvers, Director of Merchandising for Orbitz.

Hope to see you there.