The last two weeks have brought two important decisions in the ongoing litigation over behavioral advertising firm NebuAd’s alleged use of a device to intercept data from ISP networks. Several ISPs allegedly permitted NebuAd to install an “appliance” on their networks in order to collect and analyze subscriber data for ad targeting purposes. In lawsuits … Continue Reading
Companies often view privacy and data security as legal or compliance issues, but a number of recent surveys show that there is also a business case for building privacy and data security into products and services. For example: According to TRUSTe, 88% of U.S. adults report that they avoid doing business with companies that do … Continue Reading
The group that develops technical standards and guidelines for the World Wide Web released a set of draft standards on Monday that are intended to allow consumers to limit and control how they are tracked online. The standards, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (known as the “W3C”), would allow consumers to set a … Continue Reading
On October 26, 2011, the French Data Protection Authority, the CNIL, published guidance on the implementation of the new cookie rules arising from the amendments to the EU e-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC (the “Directive”). The new cookie rules have been implemented into French national law via the ordinance of August 24, 2011, relating to electronic communications … Continue Reading
Yesterday, the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) announced the release of new “Self-Regulatory Principles for Multi-Site Data,” voluntary self-regulatory standards to govern the collection, use, and sharing of data concerning user activity across non-affiliated websites. The DAA, an umbrella organization for advertising trade groups, already maintains self-regulatory principles for online behavioral advertising (OBA). Notably, while the … Continue Reading
The representatives of IAB Europe and EASA, European advertising and marketing industry associations, met with the Article 29 Working Party, a group of European data protection authorities, on 14 September 2011 to discuss the industry’s self-regulatory code on Online Behavioural Advertising. As we blogged here, the Article 29 Working Party had previously voiced concerns over … Continue Reading
By Dan Cooper and Helena Marttila On 26 August, 2011, the Article 29 Working Party, a group of European data protection authorities, published a letter to the Online Behavioural Advertising Industry regarding the proposed industry self-regulatory framework, known as the Best Practice Recommendation on Online Behavioural Advertising (the “Code”). The letter sets out the main … Continue Reading
This week, Stanford Security Lab reported preliminary results from a platform it has been developing, a chief application of which is to detect various forms of third-party tracking in an automated manner. According to researcher Jonathan Mayer’s release, which emphasizes that these are “preliminary findings from experimental software,” Stanford’s system has detected that over half … Continue Reading
As Congress continues to consider the need for privacy legislation, a number of organizations are working on new ways to better inform consumers about how data is collected, used, and shared online. A roundup of recent developments: Game developer Zynga has introduced an interactive tutorial called PrivacyVille. Players who follow along and learn about the … Continue Reading
Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has reached a settlement with Chitika, Inc., an ad network that tracks a user’s online activities in order to deliver advertising targeted to the individual user’s interests. In its complaint, the FTC claimed that Chitika made statements that (1) users could opt out of targeted advertising by clicking on an “Opt-Out” button and (2) … Continue Reading
