• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 4, 2025

The ad industry self-regulatory group Digital Advertising Alliance will consider issuing guidance regarding the use of artificial intelligence for behavioral targeting.

The organization's current privacy code generally requires companies to notify consumers about online behavioral advertising -- meaning ads served based on inferences about users' interests, as inferred from their activity across sites and apps -- and allow people to opt out of receiving such ads.

Ad companies already rely on algorithms for behavioral advertising, and it's not yet clear how the use of newer artificial intelligence for behavioral advertising tools may affect privacy.

It's also not clear how -- or even whether -- the Digital Advertising Alliance may revise its code to account for new artificial intelligence systems. One possibility is that it will recommend that companies provide more information to consumers about how ad targeting systems use artificial intelligence.

Lou Mastria, CEO of the group, stated Wednesday that the review will examine “steps companies can take to ensure they are providing appropriate information and control to consumers” regarding the collection and use of behavioral-advertising data by artificial intelligence systems.

The organization added that its principles and communications committee will manage the review process, and will consider issues including artificial intelligence systems' “current and anticipated use cases” for behavioral-advertising data, consumer expectations, and how the industry's guidance interacts with laws and regulations.

The group's initiative comes as California's privacy agency is considering new regulations regarding automated decision-making technology. Last year, California's privacy agency proposed rules that effectively would have required companies to let consumers opt out of first-party targeted advertising -- generally meaning ads served by a company based on consumers' activities on that company's own sites or apps.

The agency withdrew that proposal from its most recent set of potential regulations, but privacy advocates this week urged the agency to reconsider and reinstate the proposal.