[Infowarrior] - Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and Three Activities that Enable It

[Richard Forno]

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1478214

Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and Three Activities that Enable  
It

Joseph Turow
University of Pennsylvania - Annenberg School for Communication

Jennifer King
Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; University of California,  
Berkeley - School of Law

Chris Jay Hoofnagle
University of California, Berkeley - School of Law, Berkeley Center  
for Law & Technology

Amy Bleakley
Annenberg Public Policy Center

Michael Hennessy
Annenberg Public Policy Center


September 29, 2009


Abstract:
This nationally representative telephone (wire-line and cell phone)  
survey explores Americans' opinions about behavioral targeting by  
marketers, a controversial issue currently before government  
policymakers. Behavioral targeting involves two types of activities:  
following users' actions and then tailoring advertisements for the  
users based on those actions. While privacy advocates have lambasted  
behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do  
not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by  
insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other  
forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible.

Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66%) do  
not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests.  
Moreover, when Americans are informed of three common ways that  
marketers gather data about people in order to tailor ads, even higher  
percentages - between 73% and 86% - say they would not want such  
advertising. Even among young adults, whom advertisers often portray  
as caring little about information privacy, more than half (55%) of  
18-24 years-old do not want tailored advertising. And contrary to  
consistent assertions of marketers, young adults have as strong an  
aversion to being followed across websites and offline (for example,  
in stores) as do older adults.

This survey finds that Americans want openness with marketers. If  
marketers want to continue to use various forms of behavioral  
targeting in their interactions with Americans, they must work with  
policymakers to open up the process so that individuals can learn  
exactly how their information is being collected and used, and then  
exercise control over their data. We offer specific proposals in this  
direction. An overarching one is for marketers to implement a regime  
of information respect toward the public rather than to treat them as  
objects from which they can take information in order to optimally  
persuade them.

Keywords: Behavioral advertising, online advertising, privacy,  
transparency, consumer protection

JEL Classifications: D12, D18

Working Paper Series