Feds Give Tentative OK to Behavioral Ad Program

No one seems to know quite what to make of behavioral advertising.  Advertising agencies, businesses and Website publishers think it's great because it makes advertising more effective and better able to support quality content.

Consumer and privacy advocates aren't so sure, although lately the focus is shifting back towards government spying, censorship and other forms of repression. 

In the midst of all this, the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition has been studying an "accountability program" put together by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB). The program would  hold companies engaged in online behavioral advertising accountable for compliance with the “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising.”

Today, the FTC said it has "no present intention to challenge" the program and said it might even benefit consumers.  

Potential benefit

According to the staff letter, the BBB’s proposed program "has the potential to benefit consumers by increasing transparency of, and consumer control over, certain aspects of online behavioral advertising, and there appears to be little or no potential for competitive harm associated with the proposed program."

The letter said that although companies will conform their online behavioral advertising practices to a specific standard under the BBB program, that conformity "likely will enhance consumer autonomy without limiting choice of competitively offered goods and services that consumers may desire."

Unless it is designed or misused by competitors to limit competition, industry self-regulation to provide consumers with more useful information and increased choice generally benefits consumers with little or no risk of diminishing competition among complying businesses, the letter observes.

The staff advisory opinion is limited to the competition law analysis requested by the CBBB and does not address the adequacy or appropriateness of the industry self-regulatory principles or their administration.