• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 6, 2024

Online job search companies Indeed.com and Glassdoor failed to adequately inform consumers about how their data could be used for ad targeting, an industry self-regulatory privacy group said Tuesday.

Indeed.com and Glassdoor allowed third parties to collect data from consumers for ad-targeting purposes but failed to provide “enhanced notice” regarding targeted ads -- meaning ads based on users' activity across different sites -- according to the BBB National Programs' Digital Advertising Accountability Program.

While Indeed.com and Glassdoor displayed links to privacy policies, and offered links to tools that enable consumers to opt out of receiving targeted ads, neither brand met the industry's standards for enhanced notice.

Those standards require companies to offer a “clear, meaningful, and prominent” link that directs consumers to information about interest-based ads; that link also must appear on every page where ad-targeting data is collected, the accountability program wrote in a decision unveiled Tuesday.

“By drawing attention to this otherwise invisible background activity in real time, explaining it in plain language, and providing one or more choice mechanisms, enhanced notice helps consumers understand [interest-based advertising] and make choices about the use of their data,” the self-regulatory group said in the opinion.

The organization began investigating the companies -- both owned by Recruit Holdings -- after receiving a complaint from a consumer about Indeed's website.

Both Indeed and Glassdoor revised their notices and are now in compliance with the self-regulatory principles, according to the accountability program.