• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, February 22, 2012

Watch out, Madison Avenue -- Policy makers in Washington are watching you very closely. So said Marc Groman, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Network Advertising Initiative, during a late morning keynote at OMMA Data. Lucky for you, however, the NAI has your back -- or at least part of it, said Groman. “We are not, and do not pretend to be, the solution for every [digital] privacy issue,” he admitted. What the NAI does -- and does very well, according to Groman -- is represent the interests of behavioral marketers.

Not familiar with the NAI? Then consider yourself behind the curve, as more than 8 million Web users visited its Web site last year, according to the privacy self-regulatory group. That’s up significantly from 2010, when some 2.8 million people visited the NAI's site, and around 470,000 opted out of behavioral targeting, or receiving ads targeted based on sites they visited.

The NAI also recently reported that 53 of its members now provide notice via the Digital Advertising Alliance's ad icons. Additionally, nearly all members are honoring the prohibition against tracking users with technology other than HTTP cookies.