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    How YouTube, Big Data and Big Brands Mean Trouble For Kids and Parents

    The motivation for big tech is to mold this generation of youth into super-consumers.

    By Jeff Chester (link is external) / AlterNet (link is external) April 6, 2015 There is a “digital gold rush” underway to cash in on young people’s passion for interactive media. Google and other media (link is external) and ad companies are working to transform kids’ clicks and views into bundles of cash and burgeoning brand loyalty. While TV still dominates a great deal of kids’ media viewing, they are also consuming content (often simultaneously) on mobile devices, tablets, and through streaming or video-on-demand services. In February, Google (link is external) launched its YouTube Kids app for children five and under; Disney acquired leading youth-focused online video producer Maker Studios (link is external) last year in a more than $500 million deal, giving it control of “the largest content network on YouTube”; Viacom’s Cartoon Network (CN) now offers CN’s “Anything,” providing mobile phone-friendly “micro” content and promising to serve a “network of devices giving a network of experiences to a network of fans”; and Amazon, Netflix, and others are sending more “kid targeted” streaming video-on-demand programming. But unlike broadcast and cable TV, where there is at least a handful of FCC regulations that prevent some of the worst practices perfected by advertisers for targeting kids, the online world is mostly a regulatory-free zone when it comes to digital marketing. Advocates and child-health experts fought a long campaign, from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, to ensure that TV didn’t take unfair advantage of how kids relate to advertising—so that shows weren’t simply “program-length commercials” for toys, or that the “host” or star of a program—such as a cartoon character—didn’t also pitch products at the same time. There were also modest limits in how many ads could appear in so-called “kidvid” programming. These rules reflected research on children’s development and their inability to fully comprehend the nature of advertising. The FCC (link is external) policies embraced an important principle: children were to be treated differently than adults when it came to TV advertising. Such safeguards are even more important in the digital era, when sophisticated advertising techniques gather and analyze data on everything an individual does, and incorporate an array of powerful interactive features on mobile devices and PCs that have been designed to get results. Parents and others who care about children should be forewarned: For Google, Facebook, media companies like Nickelodeon, toy companies, and junk food marketers, the Internet is a medium whose primary focus is to help brand advertisers turn young people into fans, “influencers” (to spread the word via social media), and buyers of products. Although children benefit from using educational apps, and have greater access to more diverse entertainment and other content, the motivation really at work is to mold this generation of youth into super-consumers, encouraged to engage in a never-ending buying cycle of goods and services. Children (link is external) are now a key target for Google’s “monetization” strategies, helping the company cash in from the sales of toys, apps, junk food, and other products. (So-called “tweens” in the U.S. alone are said to influence (link is external) some $200 billion a year in spending, including $43 billion of their own money.) With Google’s overall revenue growth slowing, with Facebook aggressively seeking to displace it as the global digital advertising leader, and with consumers flocking to mobile phones (instead of PCs) to view videos and use apps, kids—which were one of the only consumer groups not formally targeted by Google until now—are viewed as an essential new market to conquer. In February, Google unveiled a new advertiser-supported “YouTube Kids” app, its first “product built from the ground up with little ones in mind.” Google’s YouTube Kids “product manager” claimed that “the app makes it safer and easier for children to find videos on topics they want to explore.” Google also promised that ads “that aren’t kid-appropriate don’t surface.” But Google’s YouTube Kids (link is external) is filled with ads disguised as programming and product pitches that violate rules that broadcast and cable TV channels have to follow. A coalition of consumer, privacy, and children’s advocacy groups urged the FTC to investigate Google’s new YouTube Kids app, as well as how the company targets older children on YouTube itself. (Six (link is external) of YouTube’s leading channels are “aimed at children.”) Google wants to place even the youngest kids inside its powerful marketing apparatus, making sure they will help the company generate much-needed profits as they grew older. It is encouraging brands to take advantage of how young people are engaging in a “multi-screen experience,” including watching video on smart phones, and how YouTube combines the attributes of video service and social networking. Google explains (link is external) that YouTube takes the most powerful medium for connecting with the heart and mind—video—and elevates it from a one-way communication to a two-way experience by inviting brands and consumers alike to connect, curate, create and form community … . On YouTube, brands have the unparalleled opportunity to connect with their most valuable audience and the creative freedom to do so in the most compelling way. The reward for the marketer is a fanbase moved not only emotionally, but also literally, to purchase, comment, share and advocate for that brand. In short, YouTube moves people to choose your brand. As an article on the launch of YouTube Kids explained, “If YouTube can earn the trust of parents and hook (link is external) a new group at an even earlier age, then that’s tapping a whole new market of users that will literally grow up with the service—and use it for a much longer portion of their lives.” While appearing as a distribution service for many programmers, independent and professional, YouTube is a key part of an incredibly sophisticated, elaborate, and highly powerful global marketing apparatus. Google executives recently pledged that they are “listening to brands” and taking “action” to help make YouTube a more effective platform to help accomplish their goals. YouTube: “one of the biggest Big Data projects in the world” YouTube incorporates (link is external) all of Google’s expertise in gathering and analyzing consumer information, so a user, even a young one, can be effectively targeted with marketing. YouTube, it explains, “is one of the biggest Big Data projects in the world.” “At YouTube, data drives the way we make decisions,” including to help its advertisers “get closer to the holy grail of precision targeting.” YouTube, explains the company, has “one of the world’s richest datasets,” which it combines with “Google’s cutting-edge technology” to “transform insights into real-world products.” YouTube continually researches and develops ways to measure and analyze how ads can work more effectively; it identifies “new algorithms and methods for optimizing ads,” “researches new ways for modeling end user behavior,” and more. Its data fuel YouTube’s “recommendation systems,” and the company is now “pushing the boundaries of science and engineering” to make its home page deliver more revenue. It offers its users, including children, “recommended videos” as well as other products that help its advertisers. Through machine learning about us, including analyzing our data, Google plans to further strengthen how it can “introduce users to areas of their interest that many did not realize YouTube had.” YouTube is now working to “build the next generation game-console based TV experience with YouTube video content,” which will deliver “a compelling lean back experience with monetization and e-commerce offerings” (including “pay-per stream” and ad content), as well as through partnerships that “integrate” its content. Generating revenues by attracting and targeting gamers is a key part of YouTube’s marketing-to-youth strategy. It is also positioning YouTube to be a key part of digitally connected “Living Room” devices, including “game consoles, smart TV’s, set-top boxes” to “drive distribution and user engagement.” We “put your brand in their hand” Through its “brand channels”—“a 24/7 broadcast center where customers can watch, share and love your brand”—YouTube helps advertisers like Red Bull and Walmart “energize” its customers. These channels can be specially configured to work well with mobile devices, explains Google, so marketers (link is external) can “put your brand in their hand.” Google also offers a “Custom Brand Channel” on YouTube, “the highest level of brand channel customization,” which incorporates special “interactive applications” designed to promote the “branding” experience more effectively. Last year, as part of its ongoing effort to work more closely with leading advertisers, Google also unveiled its “Partner Select” program, which helps its clients take advantage of its advanced data-targeting platform to run ads on its top-ranked video programming. Google is working to have YouTube play a key role erasing what’s left of the boundaries that have separated advertising and content. Through what it calls “content marketing,” YouTube promises to help its advertisers take advantage of our “shortening attention spans” to positively respond to a brand’s message, explaining that “In a world of shortening attention spans and increasing options, advertising is undergoing a sea change. More and more, ads are becoming content that people choose to watch. … [W]e use the tools and know-how developed by a generation of YouTube content creators to help brands develop ads that will resonate with today’s consumers.” As a leader in using mobile phones to target individuals based on their actual location, Google is also in the forefront of delivering its content on smart phones and similar devices, boasting that “viewing video on smartphones is far less distracted than it is on TV.” YouTube: “Precision Targeting at Scale” To help its advertisers, YouTube provides “precision targeting at scale” thatleverages (link is external) “the sight, sound and motion of video, the most persuasive ad format every evented.” Google claims that its “targeting tools are so precise” marketers “can show your ad to folks around your corner or to anyone around the world.” One can target by age, gender, zip code, language, interest, and can “retarget” someone whose data have been (largely secretly) collected when they were on YouTube or other sites. Google offers advertisers a formidable arsenal of “3rd Party Audience Data” that can incorporate details on one’s finances, buying behavior, and many other personal details. Now reaching one billion people worldwide, YouTube identifies Hispanics, teens, those “hard to reach,” as well as adult men and women as key targets; it notes, for example, that “54% of all teens” and “59% of all Hispanics” use it. (Among the “facts” on Hispanics it lists for advertisers is that “76% currently own a pet” and “58% are grocery decision makers in their household.”) YouTube also plays a direct role helping key advertisers achieve their goals, including through its “in-house creative team” (which it calls “The ZOO”) that “can unleash the true power of your message with a custom campaign.” YouTube’s “Brand Nirvana” Promotes Junk Food to Kids Google has been helping Mondelez, Pepsi, and other fast-food marketers push their products—despite concerns about the global obesity epidemic—especially on young people. Last year, Mondelez signed a deal with Google that featured the candy (link is external) and snack company (Oreo, etc.) making a commitment to “accelerate” its investment in online video. The pact involved the use of Google’s advanced data-driven targeting system (known as “programmatic buying”) and the development of more “branded content.” Google and Mondelez are “partnering on content pilots through YouTube’s Brand Partner Program … [to produce] low-cost video content featuring influential digital stars with Sour Patch Kids in the U.S.” Mondelez’s YouTube channel for Oreos features an array of ads dressed up as games, in English and Spanish, which is typical of Google’s use of video to promote junk food products using the full power of its platform. Fast-food companies, including such brands as Coca-Cola, Mars, Mondelez, Wendy’s, and Post cereal, are also using advanced analytics on YouTube viewing to help refine their targeting strategies. Frank Cooper, Pepsi’s chief marketing officer, was a keynote speaker at YouTube’s “Brandcast” 2014 event. In announcing that Pepsi has increased its spending for YouTube services by 50 percent over the last year, Cooper noted that “we live in a world where visual content in the digital space is the new center of gravity for pop culture,” and being on YouTube and related digital applications enables Pepsi (link is external) to be part of a conversation that is “driving culture.” When people share “your content with their friends,” he noted, it is “brand nirvana.” YouTube as Toy Promotion Central Google is positioning YouTube (link is external) to be a central place for children to learn about toys they want their parents or family to buy. As one toy business analyst explained, “It’s a totally new way of advertising. [The YouTube channels] are becoming more and more important.” Although Google’s terms of service (ToS (link is external)) for YouTube requires users to be 13 and older, it’s clear that it is targeting kids—and violating its own policy—in order to profit from the children’s market. Its ToS states that “the Service is not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use the Service. There are lots of other great web sites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.” Yet despite its own ToS banning children from signing up, YouTube is clearly targeting kids. For example, “FunToyzCollector (link is external),” which describes itself as “all about kid-friendly videos for toddlers, babies, infants and pre-school children,” recently placed first in views among all the YouTube channels (517.3 million). The channel engages in “unboxing” toys, an increasingly sought after YouTube genre that provides viewers with a “virtual tour” of kids products, such as “Sofia the First Balloon Tea Party 2-in-1 Playset with Disney Frozen Princess Anna Elsa of Arendelle.” Very popular with young kids in the U.S., the YouTube ad-supported channel made its owner an estimated $4.9 million last year. Kids either find or are shown these channels as they search for new toys to buy or to receive as presents. “DisneyCarToys (link is external),” “a fun kid friendly toy channel” produced by Disney subsidiary Maker Studios, is another example of how Google profits by permitting the targeting of children. The channel is one of five toy-related YouTube channels that Disney acquired (link is external) in 2014, including “HobbyKidsTV, ToyReviewToys, AllToyCollector, and TheEngineeringFamily.” These popular “top 40 toy channels worldwide,” which integrate Disney’s characters and brands into the programming content, are now part of Disney’s “merchandising” strategy, which will include more brand tie-ins and advertising. Maker Studios itself has a major kids marketing presence on YouTube. It describes its “Cartoontium (link is external)” set of programs as “the place to find all the best kid’s entertainment on YouTube!” One of its channels is called “Messy Painting in the Dark-Neon Arcade,” where “Toys, games and financial support [is] provided by Hasbro.” Other Cartoonium programming features “classic episodes of Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.” “Strawberry Shortcake” and other programming include ads for toys (and some of these shows are also on the YouTube Kids app). One reason Disney acquired Maker, explained CEO Bob Iger, was to reap its “great access to data and algorithms,” which are gathered from billions of views collected through its 55,000 YouTube channels. Another kids’ toy–focused YouTube service is also partnering with the Disney/Maker empire. “EvanTubeHD (link is external),” involving two young children (eight and five years old) and their father, “boasts more than a billion views across” three channels. The two children “review and play with the most popular kids toys currently on shelves.” As an analyst explained why toy companies are enthusiastically seeking out relationships with kid reviewers online, “Kids trust other kids more so than they would an adult.” Maker has a broad range of marketing services it offers brands (link is external) and advertisers, including “custom pre-roll” ads (the short spots that run before a YouTube or other video content starts); channel targeting (“integrate your brand message natively into our top performing channels”); and sponsorships (“More than just a logo, our unique custom sponsorships allow you to connect with our forward leaning and deeply engaged audiences”). Maker touts its strong alliance of partners, including its “custom solutions to the world's best brands” and “effective and hyper-targeted media solutions.” Partners include Mattel, Pepsi, Warner Bros, and parent Disney. It also works with the leading ad agencies that represent major global brands “to create unique programs across our programming and talent.” In another example of how Google fails to protect children, it allows Disney to encourage its young viewers to connect to them using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—despite these sites requiring users to be 13 years or older. So eager is Google to reap profits, it appears purposely to ignore how toy companies are establishing nothing more than 24/7 virtual ad channels on YouTube. For example, Spin Master, a “top-five” toy company, has created a “kid centric YouTube channel dubbed SpindoTV (link is external), aimed at children 6-11. Its shows are based on its toy line-up, including “Sick Bricks” and “Beat the Parents” board game. Many of its shows are a part of Google’s new YouTube Kids app. According to a Spin Master executive, “We know from our research that these kids are already on YouTube in massive numbers.” YouTube, of course, is just one method Google uses to help it reach and monetize young people. It is also “building successful apps and games” for its “Google Play for Education and Kids vertical,” helping developers create “commercially viable offerings to educators and students, parents and kids.” The popularity of YouTube among children has triggered a “must-have-the-video-network” buying strategy from companies targeting the youth market worldwide. Marketers researching youth know that kids are using YouTube as a search engine because it includes pictures, videos, and other audio-visual material. It’s also “easy to navigate” for children, with reports that “kids who are into watching TV episodes on YouTube” like to see other episodes and “recommended videos” on the sidebar. More critically, digital market researchers studying children have identified YouTube as providing an important social and creative outlet for tweens, and finding cool YouTube videos to share with others is a form of social capital. … [T]weens most frequently share cool videos when hanging out (in person) with their friends and family. … [W]e call this phenomenon clustersharing. … [I]t speaks more to their desire to physically experience videos with others—to see, to feel and to share that experience, including their thoughts and emotions. The same researchers advise marketers to take advantage of the “clustersharing (link is external)” concept, and encourage ways to “enhance that in-person, social experience. Using ad content (like a group game) or finding a way to alleviate the agonizing “live” wait of a 15-second pre-roll between each video presents “an opportunity to enrich your brand experience with this very engaged audience.” Tracking our “Consumer Journey” Google is in the forefront of digital marketing companies promising to help its clients influence and “measure” what it calls the “customer journey.” It views itself as helping them analyze and place each consumer on a continuous “path-to-purchase (link is external)” cycle, tracking us wherever we go, and using its resources to have us shop “until we drop”—online and off. Among the benefits Google promises its advertisers, for example, is that they will be able to identify and “value” their “best customers,” and “distinguish the whales from the wasted energy.” (“Whales” is a marketing industry term describing a big spender; “waste” is an ad term for a consumer deemed not valuable.) YouTube conducts research (link is external) to document how its advertisers positively impact our “recall” of various brand commercial messages. Google’s DoubleClick division, which uses data to determine the impact of video ads, offers advertisers the latest ways they can “verify” whether a person actually views a video ad on YouTube. To help its largest advertising clients measure how we respond to Google’s interactive marketing services, the company is now working with Nielsen and comScore, two of the leading global companies that assess consumer interaction with ads, including on YouTube. There are other companies also helping marketers analyze YouTube data. For example, Outrigger’s “OpenSlate (link is external)” platform “ingests, analyses and scores more than 220,000 YouTube channels on measures of engagement, consistency, influence, momentum and ad effectiveness.” (It now is up to 250,000 channels.) It “supplements YouTube data on more than 70 million videos with data from social media and proprietary demographic data. Our platform consistently incorporates brand advertising performance data to further develop video and channel level profiles.” Through its information, brand advertisers can identify “the highest-quality inventory on YouTube,” and then target them using a variety of Big Data tactics. (“Inventory,” as used by the online marketing industry, can either refer to individual users or programming content. Kids and teens are seen as highly valuable “inventory.”) Time for Regulatory Action Against Google to Protect Kids Google, as the dominant digital marketing company, has raised numerous concerns about its corporate practices, including from privacy regulators, civil liberties advocates, and competition regulators from around the world. (The company has led an anti-privacy-regulation agenda in both the U.S. and EU, to ensure that the flow of personal data that makes its interactive marketing system run will never end.) Its latest move to better monetize children through YouTube Kids is the first of what will be a succession of profit-generating ventures that help transform kids’ lives into a never-ending commercial. Even Facebook, which expressed interest in targeting children 13 and younger, has not yet directly entered the kids market. Google’s brazen move to cash in on our kids will likely spur Facebook to jettison any reticence to include them on its social network. After all, why should Google gain all the profits from this new, lucrative, and influential audience? Beyond federal and state investigations into Google’s brazen targeting of children on YouTube, what’s needed now are new policies that ensure young people aren’t unfairly treated by digital marketers. This includes rules that don’t leave children and teens vulnerable to digital marketing practices and also better protect their privacy. For example, Google is at the forefront of companies using what is called “immersive” media, to make sure brands—including on YouTube—can “grab” our attention. All of the data gathered from our use of mobile phones, social media, and online video feed so-called “profiles” that are used to target us for advertising—increasingly regardless of location (think of a mobile discount coupon from a nearby fast food outlet appearing on children’s phones as they come out of school) and in real-time (right as you are in the store cereal or toy aisle). These practices are highly questionable when targeting adults, let alone young people. Companies like Google should develop their own policies that actually protect and empower young people—not just turn them into the latest profit center. A global leader like Google, with immense profits, should only be offering kids commercial- (and data targeting-) free content. It shouldn’t be helping junk food and toy companies take advantage of kids to sell them products that don’t promote their development and health. It is doubtful, however, that Google will change course. It is, after all, primarily an advertising company whose allegiance is to the biggest brands and the marketing industry. It’s time for activist shareholders of Google and other companies to press for the adoption of new corporate policies that protect young people in the digital age. Parents will have to decide whether Google’s corporate culture, focused as it is on promoting marketing to young kids, is incompatible with their values and goals. But it will also take a movement of parents, educators, public interest groups, and policymakers to force Google and other kids marketers to act responsibly. If we want to see the next generation grow up without being greatly influenced by the most powerful advertising apparatus yet developed, this is a fight we must join.
  • April 7, 2015 Consumer groups want the FTC to investigate Google over what they consider deceptive advertising toward kids. Click to watch the Video. (link is external) http://time.com/money/3774017/ftc-google-youtube-kids-app-advertising/ (link is external)
  • By Adam Rubenfire (link is external) March 18, 2015 The cyberattack against Premera Blue Cross disclosed this week affects significantly fewer people than this year's Anthem (link is external) hack, but the value of the information exposed could pose a bigger threat to the insurer. Premera discovered in January that a May 2014 cyberattack breached a system holding 11 million people's records, the company announced on Tuesday. The records exposed may have included clinical and financial records, in addition to personal information like addresses and Social Security numbers. Anthem has said it believes the theft of data on nearly 80 million customers and employees was confined to the latter category. Medical-record theft can be particularly costly for the victims (link is external). A February 2015 report from the Ponemon Institute surveying medical-identity theft victims found that about two-thirds said they had paid money to resolve the theft. Those patients paid an average of $13,500. Patients may be able to seek damages for identity theft that occurs years after the free identity-theft protection the company is offering has ended, said Ken Dort, a partner in the law firm Drinker Biddle who specializes in information technology. The plaintiffs, however, would have to prove that the theft was linked to the Premera hack, which could be difficult. Eric Earling, Premera's vice president of communications, said it's too early to say whether the breach will significantly affect Premera's bottom line. He declined to say whether Premera had a cybersecurity insurance policy. Anthem has said its cybersecurity policy would limit the damage to its financial results (link is external). “We're in a position as a company even before any of this where we're successful as a business and we have strong reserves to provide for our customers,” Earling said. Though Premera is offering customers two years of free credit-monitoring and identity-theft protection, that will do little to protect them against identity thieves who may wait a few years to use or sell the data. Plus, experts say, most credit-monitoring programs don't protect customers against the effects of medical-identity theft, which can be far more harmful. When asked what Premera was doing to protect its members' clinical information from being used fraudulently, a Premera spokesman referred the inquiry to Experian, the company hired to provide credit-monitoring for affected customers. An Experian spokeswoman said the product would track whether an individual's medical-record number or insurance card is used to purchase medical services that go unpaid because that would appear on an individual's credit report. Experian does not track changes in the medical record, and it does not monitor the use of information to make claims for medical services until those services go unpaid. Changes to medical records caused by medical-identity theft can be particularly harmful to patients, Modern Healthcare reported earlier this month (link is external). Fraudulent use can even be lethal if it means allergies or conditions aren't properly noted in the record. Having an individual's personal, clinical and financial information gives identity thieves a more convincing profile, allowing them to engage in what's called “total identity theft,” said Pamela Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a San Diego-based non-for-profit organization. The trifecta of data accessed in this case is the “worst-case scenario," Dixon said. "The people who were exposed in this breach will have to be on guard for at least a decade." The company says that it has no evidence that hackers actually removed data from its systems, only that the systems were breached. But Dixon said there are ways the attackers could have stolen data without a trace and that she wouldn't be surprised if they did given the length of time they had access. Although companies are under pressure to be more proactive about data security (link is external), the number and size of recent breaches suggest it's increasingly likely consumers will have their information exposed at some point. “You now have a situation where to be a reasonable consumer you almost need to sign up with one of the (credit protection) bureaus on a nonstop basis,” Dort said. Follow Adam Rubenfire on Twitter: @arubenfire (link is external) insurer.
  • Blog

    Network Neutrality, Protecting Privacy & placing limits on the power of the "old" &"new" media: Net Freedom

    Jeff Chester on the links between the Network Neutrality and Privacy Bill of Rights issue. Originally posted on Alternet.

    The Internet and our digital media are quietly becoming a pervasive and manipulative interactive surveillance system. Leading U.S. online companies, while claiming to be strong supporters of an open and democratic Internet, are working behind the scenes to ensure that they have unlimited and unchecked power to “shadow” each of us online. They have allied with global advertisers to transform the Internet into a medium whose true ambition is to track, influence and sell, in anever-ending cycle (link is external) [6], their products and political ideas. While Google, Facebook and other digital giants claim to strongly support a “democratic” Internet, their real goal is to use all the “screens” (link is external) [7]we use to empower a highly commercialized and corporatized digital media culture. Last Thursday was widely viewed as a victory for “Internet Freedom” and a blow to a “corporatized” Internet as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) endorsed a historic public utility framework for Network Neutrality (NN). It took the intervention of President Obama last year, who called (link is external) [8] for “the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality,” to dramatically transform the FCC’s plans. Its chairman, Thomas Wheeler, a former cable and telecom lobbyist, had previously been ambivalent about endorsing strong utility-like regulations. But feeling the pressure, especially from the president, he became a “born again” NN champion, leading the agency to endorse (link is external) [9] “strong, sustainable rules to protect the Open Internet.” But the next day, the Obama White House took another approach to Internet Freedom, handing the leading online companies, including Google, Facebook, and their Fortune-type advertising clients, a major political victory. The administration released its long-awaited “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights (link is external) [10]” legislation. The bill enables the most powerful corporations and their trade associations to greatly determine what American privacy rights will be. By giving further control over how data are gathered and used online, the administration basically ceded more clout to a corporate elite that will be able to effectively decide how the Internet and digital applications operate, today and in the near future. How do privacy rules impact the openness of the Internet, and the ability to promote and sustain progressive and alternative perspectives? While much of the public debate on pervasive data mining has focused on the role of the NSA and other intelligence agencies that were exposed by Edward Snowden, there has not been as much discussion on the impact of the commercial data system that is at the core of the Internet today. Google, Facebook, and others use our data as the basis of an ever-expanding global system of commercial surveillance. This information is gathered from our mobile devices, PCs, apps, social networks, and increasingly even TVs—and stored in digital profiles. These far-reaching dossiers—which can be accessed and updated in milliseconds—can include information on our race/ethnicity, financial status, health concerns, location, online behavior, what our children do, whom we communicate with on social media, and much more. The major online companies are continually expanding their commercial data gathering practices. They now merge and use our online and offline data (what we do online and information collected from store loyalty cards, etc.); track us across all the devices we use (PCs, mobile, etc.); and amass even more data about us supplied by a vast network of data broker (link is external) [11] alliances and partnerships (such asFacebook (link is external) [12] with its myriad of data partners, including Acxiom and Epsilon). A U.S. digital data industry “arms race,” with companies vying to own the most complete set of records on every consumer, has also led to a wave [13] of mergers and acquisitions, where companies that have already compiled huge datasets on Americans (and global consumers) being swallowed up by even larger ones. Leading corporations are investing vast sums to harvest and, in their own words, make “actionable” information we now generate nearly 24/7. So-called “Big Data” technologies enable companies to quickly analyze and take advantage of all this information, including understanding how each of us uses online media and mobile phones. A score of “Math Men and Women”-led advertising-technology companies have pioneered the use of super fast computers that track where we are online and, in milliseconds, crunch through lots of our data to decide whether to target us with advertising and marketing (regardless of whether we use a PC or mobile device and, increasingly, using our geolocation information). These machines are used to “auction” us off individually to the highest bidder, so we can be instantly delivered some form of marketing (or even political) message. Increasingly, the largest brands and ad agencies are using all this data and new tactics to sell us junk food, insurance, cars, and political candidates. For example, these anonymous machines can determine whether to offer us a high-interest pay day loan or a lower interest credit card; or an ad from one political group versus another. But it’s not just the ability to harvest data that’s the source of increased corporate clout on the Internet. Our profiles are tied to a system of micro-persuasion, the 21st century updating of traditional “Madison Avenue” advertising tactics that relied on “subliminal” and cultural influence. Today, online ads are constructed by connecting our information to a highly sophisticated digital marketing apparatus. At places like Google’s BrandLab (link is external) [14], AT&T’s Adworks (link is external) [15] Lab, or through research efforts such as Facebook IQ (link is external) [16], leading companies help their well-heeled clients take advantage of the latest insights from neuromarketing (link is external) [17] (to deliberately influence our emotions and subconscious), social media monitoring (link is external) [18], new forms of corporate product placement (link is external) [19], and the most effective ways to use all (link is external) [20] of our digital platforms. The online marketing industry is helping determine the dimensions of our digital world. Much of the Internet and our mobile communications are being purposely developed as a highly commercialized marketplace, where the revenues that help fund content go to a select, and largely ad-supported, few. With Google, Facebook, major advertisers and agencies all working closely together throughout the world to further commercialize our relationship to digital media, and given their ownership over the leading search engines, social networks, online video channels, and how “monetization” of content operates, these forces pose a serious obstacle to a more democratic and diverse online environment. One of the few barriers standing in the way of their digital dominance is the growing public concern (link is external) [21] about our commercial privacy. U.S. companies have largely bitterly opposed proposed privacy legislation—in the U.S. and also in the European Union (link is external) [22] (where data protection, as it is called, is considered a fundamental (link is external) [23] right). Effective regulations for privacy in the U.S. would restore our control of the information that has been collected about us, versus the system now in place that, for the most part, enables companies to freely use it. But under the proposed Obama plan, Google, Facebook and other data-gathering companies would be allowed to determine the rules. Through a scheme the White House calls a “multi-stakeholder” process, industry-dominated meetings—with consumer and privacy groups vastly outnumbered and out-resourced—would develop so-called self-regulatory “codes of conduct” to govern how the U.S. treats data collection and privacy. Codes would be developed to address, for example, how companies can track and use our location information; how they compile dossiers about us based on what we do at the local grocery store and read online; how health data can be collected and used from devices like Fitbit; and more. This process is designed to protect the bottom line of the data companies, which the Obama White House views as important to the economy and job growth. (Stealing other people’s data, in other words, is one of America’s most successful industries). Like similar self-regulatory efforts, stakeholder codes are really designed to sanction existing business practices and enable companies to continue to accumulate and use vast data assets unencumbered. The administration claims that such a stakeholder process can operate more effectively than legislation, operating quickly in “Internet time.” Dominated by industry (link is external) [24] as they are, stakeholder bodies are incapable of doing anything that would adversely impact their own future—which currently depends on the ability to gather and use all our data. The administration’s bill also strips away the power of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which now acts as the leading federal watchdog on privacy. Instead of empowering the FTC to develop national rules that enable individuals to make their own privacy decisions, the bill forces the agency to quickly review (in as little as 90 days) the proposed stakeholder codes—with little effective power to reject them. Companies become largely immune to FTC oversight and enforcement when they agree to abide by the self-regulatory policies their lobbyists basically wrote. In a rare rebuke to the administration, the FTC, (link is external) [25] leading Congressional Democrats (link is external) [26], and the majority of consumer and privacy [27] organizations rejected the White House’s privacy plan. But the administration does not appear to be willing, for now, to change its support for the data companies; and as we know, Silicon Valley and their business allies have strong support in Congress that will prevent any privacy law from passing for now. To see how the online lobby has different views on Internet Freedom, compare, for example the statements of the “Internet Association”—the lobbying trade organization that represents (link is external) [28] Google, Facebook, Amazon and dozens of other major online data-gathering companies—on last week’s two developments. It praised (link is external) [29] the FCC NN decision for creating “strong, enforceable net neutrality rules … banning paid prioritization, blocking, and discrimination online.” But the group rejected (link is external) [30] the Administration’s privacy proposal, as weak as it was, explaining that “today’s wide-ranging legislative proposal outlined by the Commerce Department casts a needlessly imprecise net.” At stake, as the Internet Association knows, is the ability of its members to expand their businesses throughout the world unencumbered. For example, high on the agenda for the Internet Association members (link is external) [31] are new U.S. brokered global trade deals, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which will free our digital giants from having to worry about strong privacy laws abroad. While the NN battle correctly viewed Comcast, Verizon, and other cable and phone giants as major opponents to a more democratic digital media environment, many of the online companies were seen as supporters and allies. But an “open” network free from control of our cable/telco monopolies is just one essential part for a more diverse and public interest-minded online system. Freedom must also prevent powerful interests from determining the very structure of communications in the digital age. Those companies that can collect and most effectively use our information are also gatekeepers and shapers of our Internet Future. The NN victory is only one key step for a public-interest agenda for digital media. We also must place limits on today’s digital media conglomerates, especially their ability to use all our data. The U.S is one of the only “developed” countries that still doesn’t (link is external) [32] have a national law protecting our privacy. For those concerned about the environment, we must also address how U.S. companies are using the Internet to encourage the global (link is external) [33] public to engage in a never-ending consumption spree that has consequences for sustainability and a more equitable future. There is ultimately an alignment of interests between the so-called “old” media of cable and the telephone industry with the “new” online media. They share similar values when it comes to ensuring the media they control brings eyeballs and our bank accounts to serve them and their advertising clients. While progressive and public interest voices today find the Internet accessible for organizing and promoting alternative views, to keep it so will require much more work. Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org [34]). Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/media/under-radar-big-media-internet-giants-get-massive-access-everything-about-you (link is external) Links: [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jeffrey-chester (link is external) [2] http://alternet.org (link is external) [3] http://www.alternet.org/fear-america/9-social-panics-gripped-nation-were... (link is external) [4] http://www.alternet.org/fear-in-america (link is external) [5] http://www.alternet.org/fear-america/fear-dominates-politics-media-and-h... (link is external) [6] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-online-purchas... (link is external) [7] http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2014/shifts-in-viewing-the... (link is external) [8] http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality (link is external) [9] http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-strong-sustainable-rules-protect-... (link is external) [10] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/we-can-t-wait-obam... (link is external) [11] http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2013/12/testimony-what-information-do-d... (link is external) [12] https://facebookmarketingpartners.com/marketing-partners/ (link is external) [13] http://www.democraticmedia.org/bigger-data-broker-mergers-oracle-swallow... [14] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/let-go-six-brandlab-secrets.html (link is external) [15] http://adworks.att.com/lab/ (link is external) [16] http://insights.fb.com/ (link is external) [17] http://www.neurosense.com/index.php/clients (link is external) [18] http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/social-media-intelligence/forsight-platfor... (link is external) [19] http://admob.blogspot.com/2015/03/announcement-gdc.html (link is external) [20] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/platforms/ (link is external) [21] http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/12/public-privacy-perceptions/ (link is external) [22] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e29a717e-6df0-11e2-983d-00144feab49a.html#axzz... (link is external) [23] http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fundamental-rights/charter/index_en.htm (link is external) [24] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047775/critic-ntias-mobile-privacy-push-... (link is external) [25] http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-s-privacy-bill-of-rights-gets-... (link is external) [26] http://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-white-house-priv... (link is external) [27] http://www.democraticmedia.org/leading-us-consumer-privacy-groups-call-p... [28] http://internetassociation.org/our-members/ (link is external) [29] http://internetassociation.org/022615netneutrality/ (link is external) [30] http://internetassociation.org/022715privacy/ (link is external) [31] http://internetassociation.org/05102013transatlantictrade/ (link is external) [32] https://cdt.org/insight/analysis-of-the-consumer-privacy-bill-of-rights-... (link is external) [33] http://www.google.com/about/careers/teams/markcomm/ (link is external) [34] http://www.democraticmedia.org [35] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo (link sends e-mail) on Under the Radar, Big Media Internet Giants Get Massive Access to Everything About You [36] http://www.alternet.org/ (link is external) [37] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B (link is external)
  • The letter (attached) was sent today to Pres. Obama. Jeff Chester, CDD's executive director, explained that the Administration's proposal--released last Friday--fails to give consumers the control over their data the President promised. It was signed by: It was signed by: Center for Democracy and Technology Center for Digital Democracy Alvaro Bedoya, Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law Common Sense Media Consumer Action Consumer Federation of America Consumers Union Consumer Watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation National Consumers League New America’s Open Technology Institute Public Knowledge Privacy Rights Clearinghouse U.S. PIRG
  • We await to review the text of proposed privacy bills announced today by President Obama. Next month will mark the third (link is external)anniversary of the promise by the White House to release "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" legislation. The "Bill of Rights" for privacy is supposed to empower an individual to have serious control over how their data is gathered and used. While the "Bill of Rights" incorporates high-minded principles, we fear that at the end of the day legislation will sanction our ever-growing data collection status quo. Today, Americans face a greater loss of their privacy due the unchecked and growing use of commercial (link is external) surveillance (link is external)technologies, which now afflicts us regardless of whatever device (link is external) we use (and with most applications (link is external)). Rather than lead on privacy, U.S. companies are aggressively expanding their sophisticated and pervasive data mining activities on individuals, groups, and communities (link is external). Whether we are online or off, (link is external) our finances, (link is external) geolocation, ethnicity/race (link is external), health (link is external)concerns and much more are secretly gathered and used without meaningful consent--let alone our awareness. A set of invisible practices operate that assess, score and take advantage of all of this online and offline data. So far, the only tangible result of the President's privacy promise has been online data lobbyist-dominated "stakeholder" meetings at the Commerce Department. This process has failed to develop even a modest form of more effective self-regulation, let alone truly provide privacy protection. If the President's bill relies on these flawed stakeholder proceedings to develop privacy safeguards, it will not bring any change and merely allow ubiquitous data collection to further flourish. We also believe that an unannounced but intended audience for today's Administration plan is to remove a serious obstacle for an U.S.EU trade deal, known as TTIP. U.S. data giants see the TTIP (link is external)as a powerful way to expand their market in Europe without having to run afoul of the EU's stronger data protection rules (under the guise of "free flow of data," the TTIP would enable U.S. companies to engage in all sorts of practices without worrying about EU privacy regulators). The TTIP deal also includes a regulatory "poison pill" called "regulatory convergence." Before the FTC or other consumer protection agency could create any new regulation, it would have to be reviewed by a new EU/US council. This would enable corporate lobbyists to have additional opportunities to weaken proposed rules even before they were made public. New regulations would face a new hurdle, having to demonstrate they wouldn't negatively impact corporate trade profits. The EU should not accept as only a promise that the U.S. will protect the privacy of Americans. Even if the Obama bill is a good one, its congressional path ahead is a hard political road, with an uncertain outcome. The EU should be prudent and wait. On data breach, we are wary of preempting more effective state laws--which is high on the data industry's political agenda in 2015. The most promising development may be a commitment by the White House to seek a national bill protecting the privacy of K-12 students. CDD intends to play an active role on this and all the other proposals.
  • Blog

    CDD files Appeal to make public NIST grant to Privo

    Disclosure required on kids privacy issue involving Privo's partnership with a toy company and Verizon

    The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law my NGO led the campaign for back in the mid-1990's, was designed to ensure that parents (or the responsible adult) be able to make meaningful decisions about commercial data collected from a child (thru age 12). It's based on a concept requiring serious (read honest) and full disclosure of data collection and use practices, with prior affirmative consent (informed opt-in) before any collection occurs. Given the powerful array (link is external)of digital marketing techniques focused on collecting our information, and the need to ensure that parents have federal safeguards for the children's privacy, COPPA means that online marketing companies and their partners need to act in a highly responsbile, transparent and truly privacy appropriate manner.We are concerned that some in the online marketing industry want to create an easy "one-stop shopping" process that encourages parents to approve data collection for their child. Kids are a very lucrative market, spending (link is external)and influencing many billions a year. Some companies view COPPA as an obstacle to their plans to generate profits by online marketing to kids. Despite claims of respecting privacy (and which can also be viewed by examining the commercial market targeting adolescents), the default most marketers have adopted is full non-stop personalized data collection and real-time targeting. But COPPA makes such practices, commonplace in the digital ad industry, much harder to do. In part, it's because under the law they have to actually explain first what they intend to do and get permission. That approach is anathema to most in the online marketing business.When we learned that the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST, a division of the Department of Commerce) gave a federal $1.6 million grant (link is external)to Privo (link is external)designed to create a "parent consent at Internet scale" system for COPPA we were concerned. Privo's partners in its grant include "one of the world's largest toy companies" as well as Verizon (link is external). CDD, through our attorneys at the Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown Law Center, filed a FOIA request. The public needs to know how Privo's (link is external) system will operate; whether it's really designed to help parents make meaningful decisions; what role does the major toy company and Verizon (which has expanded (link is external) its own data targeting apparatus) play.NIST redacted nearly all of the Privo related documents, failing to provide the public the information and accountability necessary (especially when it's about the privacy of children). Today, we filed an Appeal and intend to pursue our legal options. (See attachment below.) More details coming.
  • A personal essay in the New York Review of Books (link is external) by Dr. Arnold Relman on his recent serious accident reminds us that not only does fate play an important role in our lives, but the limits of our health care system. I urge you to read it. But in addition to the horrific experience he (and his family) had to undergo (and he's a lucky one). Dr. Relman's piece also underscores that the very much-hyped use of technology in health care (such as electronic patient records) brings its own set of contradictions and problems. He writes:But what I hadn’t appreciated was the extent to which, when there is no emergency, new technologies and electronic record-keeping affect how doctors do their work. Attention to the masses of data generated by laboratory and imaging studies has shifted their focus away from the patient. Doctors now spend more time with their computers than at the bedside. That seemed true at both the ICU and Spaulding. Reading the physicians’ notes in the MGH and Spaulding records, I found only a few brief descriptions of how I felt or looked, but there were copious reports of the data from tests and monitoring devices. Conversations with my physicians were infrequent, brief, and hardly ever reported.
  • Blog

    CDD Presentation at World Health Org on Digital Alcohol Marketing

    We will present this Wed. at the WHO's Global Alcohol Policy conference. Our presentation is: The Digital Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages to Youth: How Social Media, Mobile Devices, Personalized Data Collection and Neuromarketing have transformed the global advertising landscape.

    Here's the abstract.Powerful new digital marketing techniques permit beer and alcohol companies to deeply penetrate into the hearts and minds of consumers, and their social networks of friends. The growing sophistication and capabilities of online marketing, increasingly integrated into the lifestyles of youthful and Internet connected consumers throughout the world, pose potential public health concerns—as well as opportunities. Marketing today has been transformed from the viewing of a single advert on television or in print, into experiencing interactive and highly personalized content that influences what we consume and purchase. Alcoholic beverage companies are winning global awards for their campaigns, including those launched in the Asia Pacific, EU, North and South America markets.Today, a single user can be stealthily tracked and profiled throughout their “online journey”—including their visits to many websites and they actions they take--as their information is collected and analyzed. Then so-called online “behavioral” advertising takes this profile data to target an individual user more precisely.. Mobile phone and location marketing permit marketers to “geo-target” users in specific geographic areas and at defined times. Digital advertising can operate across so-called multiple platforms—following a single consumer whether they are in front of the personal computer, using a mobile device, or even soon while watching television. Super-fast computers are able to identify a single individual who might be a suitable target for an online alcohol ad—and sell them in real-time to the highest bidder.Facebook and other social media enable marketers to go beyond the targeting of individuals to also influence and “activate” ones network of friends. The goal for much of social media marketing is to encourage consumers to do the marketing for the brand, through new forms of viral and other “peer-to-peer” endorsements. Millions of Facebook members are now regularly reached by alcoholic beverage companies.Online marketers are increasingly relying on the use of “neuromarketing” to create ads and other content expressly designed to penetrate the subconscious minds of users. Through the use of “immersive” online content, including entertainment, digital marketers are creating new forms of story-telling designed to increase brand loyalty and sales.
  • For the past 25 years, pharmaceutical companies have been permitted to market their products directly to consumers. More recently, in the years following the Food and Drug Administration’s relaxation of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising guidelines in 1997, spending on such promotion grew more than six-fold, reaching $5 billion by 2008. In the traditional media of print and broadcast, those DTC ads come with lots of fine print, including warnings of possible side effects that most consumers. But now that ever-increasing amounts of pharmaceutical marketing have moved online, there is another kind of fine print—the truth about invasive and potentially misleading pharmaceutical advertising—that consumers may never see at all. The Center for Digital Democracy recently shared these concerns in a formal filing to the FDA, the highlights of which follow: 1. Personal Data Collection and Privacy Online pharmaceutical and health marketing companies have developed an extensive data collection and interactive targeting apparatus. Few U.S. health consumers are aware that they are being identified, labeled, profiled, and tracked on the Internet while they search or access information on specific conditions or concerns. 2. “Condition” and Behavioral Targeted Advertising Behavioral targeting enables health marketers to stealthily follow consumers online—sometimes across many different websites—gathering details on their interests and activities, and then offering them marketing messages precisely honed to their behaviors related to an illness or condition. Digital marketers employ online “ad networks” to help track and then target individual consumers seeking health-related information. There are also a number of specialized health portals and networks specifically created to target consumers based on particular conditions or concerns. 3. Neuromarketing It should perhaps come as no surprise that many of the companies whose products are rooted in scientific research have turned to neuroscientific techniques in an effort to influence health consumers’ subconscious decision-making processes. Called “neuromarketing,” such techniques are increasingly employed to research, design, and implement online advertising campaigns—including those for health and medical products. NeuroFocus, for example, a firm that specializes in the application of brainwave research to advertising, programming, and messaging, uses “neurological testing [that] delves down to the subconscious mind,” far below such “corrupting factors” as education, language, and cultural variances. Measuring as many as 64-128 sectors of the brain at 2,000 times per second, NeuroFocus promises results that are “unambiguous, accurate, and actionable”—results, we should add, that are achieved without the consumer’s knowledge or consent. 4. Social Media Monitoring and Marketing Perhaps most alarmingly, marketers have developed applications that allow companies to eavesdrop and analyze conversations by and among health consumers, taking advantage of users’ networks of friends to orchestrate peer-to-peer brand promotion. These new surveillance tools monitor conversations among social network users to identify what is being said about a particular issue or product. Marketers then work to insert brand-related messages into the social dialogue, often by identifying and targeting individuals considered brand “loyalists” or “influencers,” and encouraging them to generate buzz through their networks of friends. Increasingly, advertisers are using Facebook’s marketing apparatus—which is largely invisible to its users—to develop a brand presence on its pages so companies can strongly connect to the social communications of a very large pool of consumers. Heartbeat Digital’s BuzzScape, for example “allows clients to monitor discussions that flow in and out of the tens of thousands of message boards, forums, blogs and social networks that increasingly dominate the online environment.” As Heartbeat CEO Bill Drummy admits, “In a sense, we eavesdrop on public conversations among people with a shared interest, then use what we learn to create interactive marketing campaigns that address the identified needs, wants and gaps in knowledge of target audiences.” Perhaps the biggest gap in audience knowledge, of course, is awareness of the fact that online conversations concerning the most sensitive health concerns have become just so much grist for the pharmaceutical marketing mills. 5. Unbranded Sites Another common practice among pharmaceutical companies is the use of online video and websites to raise the awareness of a particular disease or condition—often without clear disclosure of sponsor relationships. Ostensibly designed as educational sites, where individuals can share their experiences with various treatments for certain maladies, sites such as LivingWithEpilepsy.com or ParkinsonsHealth.com are also useful to pharmaceutical companies as a “soft sell” opportunity, free of FDA-mandated risk-disclosure and other advertising requirements. 6. Ad Exchanges These commercial arrangements allow companies to auction off individual users to specific advertisers in real time for ad targeting. Increasingly, the targeting is accompanied by so-called “data optimization,” which draws on various information resources to compile more complete profiles of individual users. For example, Google/DoubleClick’s Ad Exchange Health focus has 36 categories, from Arthritis and Diabetes to Respiratory Conditions and Sleep Disorders. Another advertising network, ADSDAQ, offers 50 health-related categories, from A.D.D. and Alzheimer’s Disease to Weight Loss and Women’s Health. Again, consumers are never apprised of the way their personal data—including intimate health-related information—is being sold to the highest bidder. 7. Audience Segmentation The division of consumers into much smaller affinity groups (e.g., Business Travelers, Sports Fans, Technophiles) for the purpose of targeted marketing is a longstanding advertising practice. Its use by pharmaceutical marketers, however, especially in the digital context, raises a number of critical issues. The segments into which pharmaceutical companies divide their audiences go far beyond demographic and lifestyle categories to include highly personal and sensitive information relating to one’s health. For example, as Mark Miller, senior vice president for healthcare marketer Epsilon, explains, “Segment profiling dimensions include (but are not limited to): market size, geo-demographic characteristics, medication usage, self-care behaviors, bio-metrics, insurance coverage/ usage, needs/attitudes/behaviors and media consumption.” The goal of these data collection and analysis efforts, moreover, is to influence consumer behavior in some of the most personal and profound decisions they will ever have to make, concerning their own and their family’s health. 8. Mobile Campaigns Many of the same consumer data collection, profiling, and behavioral targeting techniques that have raised concerns in the more “traditional” online world have now been brought into the mobile phone marketplace. As U.S. consumers increasingly rely on their mobile devices for a wide range of services, including sensitive transactions related to health, the expansion of behavioral targeting into the mobile world (where it will be combined with precise user and location data) is especially troubling. “Not only does Mobile have a ubiquitous presence—with us 24/7,” boasts Peter Nalen, CEO of Compass Healthcare Communications, “—it can also reach more people, more efficiently, and with greater targetability.” That’s not the kind of personalized service, however, that consumers may want or need in the healthcare arena. And that’s why CDD has called upon the FDA to remedy this situation, first by conducting a comprehensive investigation into the use and impact of digital-health marketing techniques and technologies, and then by working with the Federal Trade Commission and other appropriate agencies to develop a set of policies for regulating the use of behavioral targeting, data collection, and other digital techniques in the marketing of drugs and health-related products.