Mobile's need for industry-wide privacy policy

December 18, 2008

Bob Walczak is founder and CEO of Ringleader Digital

Advertising is the foundation upon which content is built, and serves to significantly underwrite the cost of information that we receive from newspapers, magazines, the Internet, mobile, television and radio.

In fact, advertising is so ingrained in our culture that most consumers take it for granted.

But what transforms advertising from white noise to useful information? Relevancy. It is the key to sales and ROI for marketers.

However, you can't talk about relevant advertising without a serious debate on consumer privacy.

I have been in advertising for 15 years and can talk ad nauseam about advertising value. But as a consumer I'm also concerned about protecting my privacy against unscrupulous marketers.

Don't get me wrong -- most marketers are legitimate and are ultimately looking to provide more value to the consumer.

At the end of the day, however, if marketers are not providing value to the consumer, it will affect their ROI.

OK, so their true ultimate goal is to increase their ROI, but the best way to achieve that is by providing better value to the consumer.

How can marketers provide better value to consumers? That's where advertisers and publishers use tools to understand more about consumer interests and provide them with relevant content.

Look at it this way. I am an adult male, and seeing an ad about lipstick probably isn't going to pique my interest too much unless I am extremely tuned in to my girlfriend's needs, which I will readily admit, I am not …

Give me an ad that interests me, and I may be more apt to click on it and take action.

As a native New Yorker, I don't care to see ads about a service in Los Angeles -- or do I? What if I am in Los Angeles on business travel?

Location-based, or geo-targeted, advertising can ultimately provide content that may be more compelling and valuable to me.

If the mobile industry can work together to educate consumers on exactly how ad targeting works and how legitimate marketers are using these technologies, we can increase consumers' acceptance of digital advertising and foster a greater dialogue between marketers and end users.

Look to online for privacy best practice?
For wireless and other emerging media to gain parity with online advertising, they need access to capabilities similar to those available in online media.

Browser-based cookies have been critical in empowering this level of targeting, helping to drive the success of online advertising.

However, cookies are not standardized across all emerging media channels, and lack of visibility into activity or response from any target demographic can inhibit the growth of these platforms.

Any technology with the ability to support standards across all digital media will drive growth across the entire digital industry including online and mobile, as well as simplify the establishment and compliance of privacy standards.

Defining separate privacy standards for each emerging media channel requires addressing a myriad of idiosyncrasies and challenged between each technology that will ultimately lead to more confusion than good.

Publishers, advertisers, and providers of tools/applications focused on growing the mobile industry should learn from past missteps in the online industry.

This means that privacy must be front and center in any discussion on business growth or providing value to customers.

Customer trust is central to any growing industry, and in this case, all facets of the privacy debate must be clearly articulated, transparent and enforced.

The mobile industry must proactively address privacy ramifications of new applications and technologies, and maintain an open and ongoing dialogue with consumers, privacy advocacy organizations and industry partners.

Standard framework for mobile privacy
When it comes to disclosure, the industry needs to come together and define standardized information collection and use categories.

Rather than having long, drawn out T's & C's on Web sites -- that no one reads anyway -- they can display the privacy collection and use statement, or include industry-standard privacy icons on their privacy pages.

Users can go to an industry page to understand what the privacy icons or policies mean.

Over time, with enough education, the standardized categories may even become common language and part of everyday vernacular, simplifying consumer understanding of the industry even further.

It's time for privacy groups to start thinking about emerging media and it's time for emerging media to look for new standards across all media, step up to the plate, and be proactive in their efforts to protect consumer privacy.

Consumers are already becoming increasingly interested and accepting of demographic and geo-based targeting. It's now time for advanced models like behavioral and re-targeting to gain consumer acceptance.

A clear, industry-wide privacy policy will provide the groundwork for users to accept new forms of advertising and dialogue between consumers and brands.

The more we can educate consumers about how new technologies are being used and how the wireless industry is committed to safeguarding their privacy, the more consumers will trust new technologies and the mobile companies using them.

Bob Walczak is CEO of mobile ad network Ringleader Digital, New York. Reach him at .