If June was "let's form an organization" month, July is starting out as "let's set some guidelines" month.
Not that I've specifically chosen the Internet Advertising Bureau -
http://www.iab.net - to pick on, but today they released two announcements dealing with privacy and wireless advertising guidelines. And, unfortunately, the only phrase that came to this cynical
mind was déjà vu.
The good news is, the IAB has finally released a set of "recommended" privacy guidelines for its membership in conjunction with last months' Privacy Forum meeting in NYC. The
full text is available on the IAB website including recommendations on "Adoption and Implementation of a Privacy Policy," "Notice and Disclosure," "Choice and Consent" and "Data Security." No
surprises there.
With much fanfare, however, IAB's brand new Wireless Advertising Association also held its first meeting last week in New York, aiming to - what else - establish some voluntary
guidelines for the wireless advertising industry.
During this meeting, the group defined the first problems as (care to guess?) Ad Measurement, Creative Standards and Ad Models, Consumer Issues
/ Privacy and Ad Delivery. Tim DePriest, interim Chairperson of the WAA, was quoted as saying "We believe that the approach we have defined will serve to propel the orderly growth of wireless
advertising."
As promising as that sounds, if it takes an organization several months to come up with the above four points, "propel" may just be the overstatement of the month. Maybe I'm too
critical of volunteer organizations, but when are the conversations going to turn from things the rest of us can recite in our sleep - their "next steps" - to actual accomplishments? Care to lay a
wager?