A “significant minority” of publishers don't follow self-regulatory rule requiring enhanced notice about data collection, an enforcement unit of the Better Business Bureau said today.
The BBB's Accountability Program made the statement as part of a compliance warning. The warning is meant to inform publishers that the industry's self-regulatory program requires them to provide
“enhanced” notice -- in the form of a separate link -- on every page where ad networks or other third parties collect information for online behavioral advertising purposes. That link must
be underneath text like “Interest-based ads,” “About our ads,” “AdChoices,” or “Why did I get this ad,” and also must lead to a site where people
can opt out of online behavioral advertising.
Genie Barton, vice president and director of the BBB's Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program, tells MediaPost that some
publishers mistakenly believed that they were in compliance as long as they displayed privacy policies.
Privacy policies often notify people about behavioral targeting and contains opt-out
links, but users often have to scroll through the entire document to find information about interest-based ads. By contrast, the “enhanced notice” links take people to sites devoted to
information about online targeting.
Barton says that her unit recently reviewed 75 publishers' sites, and found that seven lacked the “enhanced” links, but otherwise complied with
the self-regulatory programs. Barton's office closed those cases and is not naming the publishers. The BBB intends to start enforcing the enhanced-notice requirement for publishers next year.