There was big news in the privacy world this past week, starting with the FTC. President Obama indicated his intentions to appoint current Democratic Commissioner Edith Ramirez as chairwoman of the agency, replacing the outgoing chairman Jon Leibowitz. We look forward to working with her to reinforce the advertising industry’s self-regulatory initiatives. Also in government news, Senator John D. Rockefeller reintroduced his Do-Not-Track Online Act. Mr. Rockefeller released a version of the bill two years ago but did not heavily promote it. And, The New York Times ran a great article explaining how tech companies are increasingly viewing web privacy as more of a business opportunity than just a regulatory concern.

In the EU, Dutch regulators are heavily considering loosening their privacy laws after receiving complaints from publishers, users, and the advertising industry about cookie walls that were essentially required after the country implemented their interpretation of the ePrivacy Directive.

According to Digiday, the banner advertising industry may start slowing down after recent skepticism criticized banner inventory as being overly unviewable due to a lack of standards.

Evidon was in the news last week when Econtent writer Steve Smith posted an article on how “Big Data” is changing what it means to be a player in the media industry, using our recent Global Tracker Report data to point out the largest trackers on the web. Also, Ghostery was mentioned when two tech industry luminaries/philosophers each separately recommended that consumers use it to control their data online. Finally, please take a look at our latest Global Tracker Report blog post by Andy Kahl, which analyzes the different kinds of tracking prevalent on the most prominent charity websites.
 

Privacy News

White House picks Edith Ramirez to lead FTC – Politico – President Barack Obama intends to designate Edith Ramirez as chairwoman of the FTC.

• New FTC Head Ramirez Seen As Privacy Supporter – MediaPost – President Barack Obama has tapped former Harvard law classmate Edith Ramirez to replace Jon Leibowitz as head of the Federal Trade Commission.

Senator Seeks More Data Rights for Online Consumers – NYT – Before his planned retirement from Congress at the end of next year, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat, intends to give American consumers more meaningful control over personal data collected about them online. To that end, Mr. Rockefeller on Thursday introduced a bill called the “Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2013.”

Web Privacy Becomes a Business Imperative – NYT – Privacy is no longer just a regulatory headache. Increasingly, Internet companies are pushing each other to prove to consumers that their data is safe and in their control.

Facebook to team up with real-world data brokers to pick ads for you – NBC – The offline and online data collection worlds are about to collide as never before. Facebook will soon announce partnerships with Axciom, Epsilon and Datalogix, three real-world data marketing giants with access to billions of pieces of information about Americans’ shopping habits, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Why Do Not Track faces an uphill road – CNN – "Do Not Track" sounds a lot like "Do Not Call." But unlike telemarketing, online ad-tracking takes place unobtrusively, behind the scenes.

Big Data's Value Lies in Self-Regulation – Mashable – …if we don’t view data science via a framework based on sound hypotheses, we’re a sorcerer’s apprentice sweeping code in haphazard directions to take a life of its own.

More

• NAI: Ad Networks Still Need Opt-In Consent For Names, Email Addresses – MediaPost
• Google to Apple Gird for FTC-Led Mobile-Privacy Crackdown – Bloomberg Business week
• Report: Our Privacy Regimens Are Outdated – MediaPost

Global News

ICO in mobile app developer outreach drive – MarketingWeek – The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is briefing smaller app developers on data protection obligations as it and other data protection authorities draft an official “opinion” on how developers should treat consumers’ data.

Possible changes to the privacy law in the Netherlands – Bizcommunity.com – The Dutch government applied the ePrivacy directive set by the European Commission by the means of explicit consent for cookies. This explicit consent meant for a lot of websites setting up a cookiewall. Before entering a website users had to accept all cookies or did not get access to the website content. It led to a lot of complaints from internet users, online publishers and advertisers.

The Banner Industrial Complex Under Threat – Digiday – If you love the sight of Web pages packed with banner ads, take a good look and savor the moment; it may not last for long.

WPP's pre-tax profit rises to £1.09bn – The Guardian – Sir Martin Sorrell says that marketing group 'got there ugly' and warns economy may be only halfway through 'a lost decade'

Industry Effort to Improve Web Ad Metrics Goes Nowhere – Adweek – Lots of debate, little action

Sprint and Telefonica Form Mobile Advertising Alliance – ClickZ – Sprint and Telefonica are joining forces to increase the reach of their respective mobile advertising networks and collaborate on targeted ads for brands around the globe.

Acxiom Criticizes 'Faulty' Digital Data Providers on Their Own Turf – Ad Age – Traditional data firms with troves of historical customer information from the largest brands in the world are infiltrating the digital ad market, and Acxiom may be the most aggressive of the bunch. The firm is at this week's annual gathering of the online ad industry's largest trade group, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, in Phoenix. Its latest push puts Acxiom squarely in the wheel house of the IAB's core membership, digital publishers.

IAB: You're Not Spending Enough on Digital – Adweek – Study also finds post-roll video ads surprisingly popular

More

• IAB Unveils Own Ad Tech Org Chart – Adweek
• What Online Ads Really Cost – Digiday
• New York’s tech dominance grows: City ranks No. 2 in list of most tech companies sold last year – NY Daily News

Evidon in the News

Is Data the New Media? – Econtent – Digital data has not only gotten "big," as we now put it. Data has gotten fast, unstructured, and overwhelming.

TNW interviews author and consumer advocate Doc Searls – The Next Web – The NextWeb catches up with the author and activist to learn how its readers can take back their eyeballs.

Jaron Lanier on how to make the internet pay – Channel 4 – The renowned "digital prophet" Jaron Lanier speaks to Channel 4 News about making money from the web, giving power back to the average user - and why we should take a break from social media.

privacy/online security: Evidon, Ghostery for iOS – MediaPost – Ghostery enables users to manage data collected about them as they navigate the web on mobile devices.