AOL Runs Ad Campaign on Privacy; ‘Do-Not-Track’ List Proposed by Privacy Advocates

AOL has unveiled an “educational” initiative that allows users to opt out of participating in the company’s behavioral targeting program.

The initiative, which will include serving hundreds of millions of banner ads on its own sites and on those of publishers in its network, comes as the internet ad industry is coming under fire from privacy advocates, writes MediaPost.

Banner ads on AOL sites began running earlier this month. The banners announce: “We’re working with leading websites to deliver more relevant advertising and make protecting your privacy easier.” A link takes users to a page that explains the behavioral targeting program, saying, “We anonymously categorize web surfing interests using a small text file in the browser called a cookie to deliver targeted advertising.” Users can opt out of the program if they so choose.

News of the initiative comes the day before the FTC will convene a two-day conference about online privacy for advocates and online ad companies to address these concerns.

Privacy advocates are proposing the creation of a do-not-track list which, similar to the do-not-call list, will require advertisers to disclose, as part of their ads, the details of what they intend to track, reports AdAge. The groups behind the proposal include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others.

Google’s proposed acquisition of ad-serving company DoubleClick has spurred the debate on privacy issues, as privacy advocates point out that the company would be able to serve ads based on a combination of DoubleClick’s data on web behavior for specific users with Google’s records of a user’s search history.

The FTC gathering will include privacy officials from Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft, and behavioral targeting experts, writes The New York Times, in an article that offers a more consumer-oriented view of the issue.