program areas Digital Consumer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEApril 4, 2025WARNING: POSSIBLE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF FTC BY “DOGE” TEAM UNDER ELON MUSK — CONSUMER PROTECTIONS AT IMMEDIATE RISKWASHINGTON, D.C. — Alarming reports suggest that individuals associated with the so-called “DOGE team,” acting under the direction of Elon Musk, may be maneuvering to infiltrate and dismantle the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from within. Sources indicate that DOGE staffers have already embedded themselves inside the agency, potentially with access to sensitive consumer data and a vast trove of corporate trade secrets housed within internal data systems. This setup may be laying the groundwork for illegal mass firings and a reduction in force—an unprecedented power grab that could cripple the FTC’s ability to protect the American public.While details continue to emerge, the pattern is unmistakable. The DOGE team’s recent actions follow a disturbing playbook: bypassing norms, subverting legal processes, and setting the stage for institutional collapse. And there is at least one clear beneficiary—Elon Musk, whose company X (formerly Twitter) remains under a federal consent decree. A neutered FTC would eliminate one of the final safeguards standing between Musk and unchecked surveillance, exploitation, and algorithmic manipulation of users—including children.The very foundation of federal consumer protection is in danger.The FTC plays an irreplaceable role in:●          Shielding seniors and veterans from fraud●          Defending children’s safety and privacy online●          Blocking deceptive advertising and marketing practices●          Enforcing limits on monopolistic behavior and AI-driven risks Without a fully functioning FTC, corporations would face fewer consequences, and consumers would be left vulnerable to lawless business practices. This would open the floodgates to a “race to the bottom” economy—one where exploitation, manipulation, and impunity replace fair play, innovation, and trust. The consequences would be dire—especially for children, vulnerable populations, and small businesses.We urge Chair Ferguson and Commissioner Holyoak to act now. Stand firm against the DOGE team’s attempted subversion. Uphold your oaths to the institution—and to the Constitution.The American public deserves a functioning watchdog—not a hollowed-out institution hijacked by billionaires seeking to rewrite the rules in their favor.  ***The Center for Digital Democracy is a public interest research and advocacy organization, established in 2001, which works on behalf of citizens, consumers, communities, and youth to protect and expand privacy, digital rights, and data justice. CDD’s predecessor, the Center for Media Education, lead the campaign for the passage of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act over 25 years ago in 1998.   

Leading data brokers play a powerful behind-the-scenes role leveraging their data holdings across the “omnichannel” marketplace. Data brokers are currently in the forefront of providing digital “dossiers” that identify and target U.S. financial consumers, especially through “identity graph” services that enable personalized tracking and microtargeting. This is especially true with the now-dominant digital video streaming system (connected, or CTV) that touches nearly every American household, including those with children. CTV devices and streaming video networks are increasingly AI-driven data processors of consumer financial transactions, offering cross-device monitoring and interactive responses to the behavior of individual consumers. Data brokers are thoroughly embedded in the multiple operating layers of CTV, posing new and greater risks to consumers and their financial applications. The practices we describe are currently pervasive, non-transparent, unaccountable, and harmful—and clearly requiring the updates to the FCRA as proposed by the rule. The Trump Administration’s willful destruction of the CFPB raises questions as to whether consumer financial protection is still a core mission of the agency—and whether it is even possible given the mass firings and abrupt terminations of policies and staff. If the Trump CFPB decides not to enact the rule, it will place the majority of the American public at a new and higher level of financial risk, especially every time they go online or watch programming.Read CDD's full comments in the CFPB Docket "Protecting Americans from Harmful Data Broker Practices (Regulation V)" in the attachment.

Statement of Jeff Chester, executive director, Center for Digital DemocracyMarch 19, 2025 In a country where illegality is quickly replacing the rule of law, the action yesterday by Pres. Trump ending the decades of bi-partisan operations at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may seem insignificant.  But for anyone concerned about lower grocery prices, protecting privacy online, consumer protections for your money when buying goods and services, or whether children and teens can use the Internet without mass surveillance and manipulation, they should be very, very worried. Why did Pres. Trump do this now?  It’s because the U.S. is on the verge of a transformation of how we shop, buy, view and interact with businesses online and offline—due to the confluence of Generative Artificial Intelligence, expansion of pervasive data gathering and personalized profiling, and the deepening of alliances and partnerships across Big Tech, Big Data, retailers, supermarkets, hospitals, databrokers, streaming TV networks and many others.  Trump’s allies—especially Amazon, Google, Meta/Facebook, and TikTok—do not want any safeguards, oversight or accountability—especially at this time when immense profits are to be made for themselves.  The Trump Administration is rewarding the very same billionaires and Tech Giants who are responsible for raising the prices we pay for groceries, obliterating our data privacy, and making it unsafe for kids to go on social media.  Consumer advocates won’t be silent here, of course, and we will document and sound the alarm as Americans are increasingly victimized by Big Tech and large supermarket chains.  The FTC has been transformed into a Trump Administration and special interest lapdog—instead of the federal watchdog guarding the interests and welfare of the public.  Americans who struggle to make ends meet—whether they need help securing refunds, recovering from scams, or ensuring fair treatment—will be especially harmed. But let’s be clear.  The action of the Trump Administration to remove the FTC as a serious consumer protection agency has helped make every American further unsafe.                                                              --30--

Streaming Television Industry Conducting Vast Surveillance of Viewers, Targeting Them with Manipulative AI-driven Ad Tactics, Says New Report.Digital Privacy and Consumer Protection Group Calls on FTC, FCC and California Regulators to Investigate Connected TV PracticesContact: Jeff Chester, 202-494-7100 Jeff@democraticmedia.orgOctober 7, 2024Washington, DC. The Connected TV (CTV) video streaming industry in the U.S. operates a massive data-driven surveillance apparatus that has transformed the television set into a sophisticated monitoring, tracking and targeting device, according to a new report from the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). How TV Watches Us: Commercial Surveillance in the Streaming Era documents how CTV captures and harvests information on individuals and families through a sophisticated and expansive commercial surveillance system, deliberately incorporating many of the data-gathering, monitoring, and targeting practices that have long undermined privacy and consumer protection online.The report highlights a number of recent trends that are key to understanding today’s connected TV operations:Leading streaming video programming networks, CTV device companies and “smart” TV manufacturers, allied with many of the country’s most powerful data brokers, are creating extensive digital dossiers on viewers based on a person’s identity information, viewing choices, purchasing patterns, and thousands of online and offline behaviors.So-called FAST channels (Free Advertiser-Supported TV)—such as Tubi, Pluto TV, and many others—are now ubiquitous on CTV, and a key part of the industry’s strategy to monetize viewer data and target them with sophisticated new forms of interactive marketing.Comcast/NBCU, Disney, Amazon, Roku, LG and other CTV companies operate cutting-edge advertising technologies that gather, analyze and then target consumers with ads, delivering them to households in milliseconds. CTV has unleashed a powerful arsenal of interactive advertising techniques, including virtual product placement inserted into programming and altered in real time. Generative AI enables marketers to produce thousands of instantaneous “hypertargeted variations” personalized for individual viewers. Surveillance has been built directly into television sets, with major manufacturers’ “smart TVs” deploying automatic content recognition (ACR) and other monitoring software to capture “an extensive, highly granular, and intimate amount of information that, when combined with contemporary identity technologies, enables tracking and ad targeting at the individual viewer level,” the report explains.Connected television is now integrated with online shopping services and offline retail outlets, creating a seamless commercial and entertainment culture through a number of techniques, including what the industry calls “shoppable ad formats” incorporated into programming and designed to prompt viewers to “purchase their favorite items without disrupting their viewing experience,” according to industry materials.The report profiles major players in the connected TV industry, along with the wide range of technologies they use to monitor and target viewers. For example:Comcast’s NBCUniversal division has developed its own data-driven ad-targeting system called “One Platform Total Audience.” It powers NBCU’s “streaming activation” of consumers targeted across “300 end points,” including their streaming video programming and mobile phone use. Advertisers can use the “machine learning and predictive analytics” capabilities of One Platform, including its “vast… first-party identity spine” that can be coupled with their own data sets “to better reach the consumers who matter most to brands.” NBCU’s “Identity graph houses more than 200 million individuals 18+, more than 90 million households, and more than 3,000 behavioral attributes” that can be accessed for strategic audience targeting.”The Walt Disney Company has developed a state-of the-art big-data and advertising system for its video operations, including through Disney+ and its “kids” content. Its materials promise to “leverage streaming behavior to build brand affinity and reward viewers” using tools such as the “Disney Audience Graph—consisting of millions of households, CTV and digital device IDs… continually refined and enhanced based on the numerous ways Disney connects with consumers daily.” The company claims that its ID Graph incorporates 110 million households and 260 million device IDs that can be targeted for advertising using “proprietary” and “precision” advertising categories “built from 100,000 [data] attributes.”Set manufacturer Samsung TV promises advertisers a wealth of data to reach their targets, deploying a variety of surveillance tools, including an ACR technology system that “identifies what viewers are watching on their TV on a regular basis,” and gathers data from a spectrum of channels, including “Linear TV, Linear Ads, Video Games, and Video on Demand.” It can also determine which viewers are watching television in English, Spanish, or other languages, and the specific kinds of devices that are connected to the set in each home.“The transformation of television in the digital era has taken place over the last several years largely under the radar of policymakers and the public, even as concerns about internet privacy and social media have received extensive media coverage,” the report explains. “The U.S. CTV streaming business has deliberately incorporated many of the data-surveillance marketing practices that have long undermined privacy and consumer protection in the ‘older’ online world of social media, search engines, mobile phones and video services such as YouTube.” The industry’s self-regulatory regimes are highly inadequate, the report authors argue. “Millions of Americans are being forced to accept unfair terms in order to access video programming, which threatens their privacy and may also narrow what information they access—including the quality of the content itself. Only those who can afford to pay are able to ‘opt out’ of seeing most of the ads—although much of their data will still be gathered.”The massive surveillance and targeting practices of today’s contemporary connected TV industry raise a number of concerns, the report explains. For example, during this election year, CTV has become the fastest growing medium for political ads. “Political campaigns are taking advantage of the full spectrum of ad-tech, identity, data analysis, monitoring and tracking tools deployed by major brands.” While these tools are no doubt a boon to campaigns, they also make it easy for candidates and other political actors to “run covert personalized campaigns, integrating detailed information about viewing behaviors, along with a host of additional (and often sensitive) data about a voter’s political orientations, personal interests, purchasing patterns, and emotional states. With no transparency or oversight,” the authors warn, “these practices could unleash millions of personalized, manipulative and highly targeted political ads, spread disinformation, and further exacerbate the political polarization that threatens a healthy democratic culture in the U.S.”“CTV has become a privacy nightmare for viewers,” explained report co-author Jeff Chester, who is the executive director of CDD. “It is now a core asset for the vast system of digital surveillance that shapes most of our online experiences. Not only does CTV operate in ways that are unfair to consumers, it is also putting them and their families at risk as it gathers and uses sensitive data about health, children, race and political interests,” Chester noted. “Regulation is urgently needed to protect the public from constantly expanding and unfair data collection and marketing practices,” he said, “as well as to ensure a competitive, diverse and equitable marketplace for programmers.”“Policy makers, scholars, and advocates need to pay close attention to the changes taking place in today’s 21st century television industry,” argued report co-author Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D. “In addition to calling for strong consumer and privacy safeguards,” she urged, “we should seize this opportunity to re-envision the power and potential of the television medium and to create a policy framework for connected TV that will enable it to do more than serve the needs of advertisers. Our future television system in the United States should support and sustain a healthy news and information sector, promote civic engagement, and enable a diversity of creative expression to flourish.”CDD is submitting letters today to the chairs of the FTC and FCC, as well as the California Attorney General and the California Privacy Protection Agency, calling on policymakers to address the report’s findings and implement effective regulations for the CTV industry.CDD’s mission is to ensure that digital technologies serve and strengthen democratic values, institutions and processes. CDD strives to safeguard privacy and civil and human rights, as well as to advance equity, fairness, and community --30-- 

By Jeff ChesterKathryn C. Montgomery, PhD

Washington, DC                                                                                   February 15, 2024Digital marketers are unleashing a powerful and pervasive set of unfair and manipulative tactics to target and exploit children and teens.  Wherever they go online— social media, viewing videos, listening to music, or playing games—they are stealthily “accompanied” by an array of marketing practices designed to profile and manipulate them.  The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) will provide urgently needed online privacy safeguards for children and teens and update legislation first enacted nearly 25 years ago.  The proposed new law will deliver real accountability to the digital media as well as help limit harms now experienced by children and teens online. For example, by stopping data targeted ads to young people under 16, the endless stream of information harvested by online companies will be significantly reduced. Other safeguards will limit the collection of personal information for other purposes. COPPA 2.0 will also extend the original COPPA law protections for youth from 12 to 16 years of age.  The proposed law also provides the ability to delete children’s and teen’s data easily. Young people will also be better protected from the myriad of methods used to profile them that has unleashed numerous discriminatory and other harmful practices.  An updated knowledge standard will make this legislation easier to enforce.We welcome the bipartisan updated text from co-sponsors Sen. Markey and Sen. Cassidy and new co-sponsors Chair Sen. Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Member Sen. Cruz (R-Texas). Katharina Kopp, Ph.D.Director of Policy, Center for Digital Democracy

Today a coalition of groups and individuals filed an Amicus Brief in support of the CAADCA, including Fairplay Inc., Center for Digital Democracy, Common Sense, 5Rights Foundation, Children’s Advocacy Institute, Accountable Tech, Beyond the Screen, Children & Screens, Design It For Us, The Tyler Clementi Foundation, Becca Schmill Foundation, Arturo Béjar, Frances Haugen.

The insatiable quest to acquire more data has long been a force behind corporate mergers in the US—including the proposed combination of supermarket giants Albertsons and Kroger. Both grocery chains have amassed a powerful set of internal “Big Data” digital marketing assets, accompanied by alliances with data brokers, “identity” management firms, advertisers, streaming video networks, and social media platforms. Albertsons and Kroger are leaders in one of the fastest-growing sectors in the online surveillance economy—called “retail media.” Expected to generate $85 billion in ad spending in the US by 2026, and with the success of Amazon as a model, there is a new digital “gold rush” by retailers to cash in on all the loyalty programs, sales information, and other growing ways to target their customers.Albertsons, Kroger, and other retailers including Walmart, CVS, Dollar General and Target find themselves in an enviable position in what’s being called the “post-cookie” era. As digital marketing abandons traditional user-tracking technologies, especially third-party cookies, in order to address privacy regulations, leading advertisers and platforms are lining up to access consumer information they believe comes with less regulatory risk. Supermarkets, drug stores, retailers and video streaming networks have massive amounts of so-called “first-party” authenticated data on consumers, which they claim comes with consent to use for online marketing. That’s why retail media networks operated by Kroger and others, as well as data harvested from streaming companies, are among the hottest commodities in today’s commercial surveillance economy. It’s not surprising that Albertsons and Kroger now have digital marketing partnerships with companies like Disney, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Google and Meta—to name just a few.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently reviewing this deal, which is a test case of how well antitrust regulators address the dominant role that data and the affordances of digital marketing play in the marketplace. The “Big Data” digital marketing era has upended many traditional marketplace structures; consolidation is accompanied by a string of deals that further coalesces power to incumbents and their allies. What’s called “collaboration”—in which multiple parties work together to extend individual and collective data capabilities—is now a key feature operating across the broader online economy, and is central to the Kroger/Albertsons transaction. Antitrust law has thus far failed to address one of the glaring threats arising from so many mergers today—their impact on privacy, consumer protection, and diversity of media ownership. Consider all the transactions that the FTC and Department of Justice have allowed in recent years, such as the scores of Google and Facebook acquisitions, and what deleterious impact they had on competition, data protection, and other societal outcomes.Under Chair Lina Khan, the FTC has awakened from what I have called its long “digital slumber,” moving to the forefront in challenging proposed mergers and working to develop more effective privacy safeguards. My organization told the commission that addressing the current role data-driven marketing plays in the Albertsons and Kroger merger, and how consolidating the two digital operations is really central to the two companies’ goals for the deal, must be part of its antitrust case.Kroger has been at the forefront of understanding how the sales and marketing of groceries and other consumer products have to operate simultaneously in-store and online. It acquired a leading “retail, data science, insights and media” company in 2015—which it named 84.51° after its geo coordinates in Cincinnati. Today, 84.51° touts its capabilities to leverage “data from over 62 million households” in influencing consumer buying behavior “both in-store and online,” using “first party retail data from nearly 1 of 2 US households and more than two billion transactions.” Kroger’s retail media division—called “Precision Marketing”—draws on the prowess of 84.51° to sell a range of sophisticated data targeting opportunities for advertisers, including leading brands that stock its in-store and online shelves. For example, ads can be delivered to customers when they search for a product on the Kroger website or its app; when they view digital discount coupons; and when customers are visiting non-Kroger-owned sites.These initiatives have created a number of opportunities for Kroger to make money from data. Last year, Precision Marketing opened its “Private Marketplace” service that enables advertisers to access Kroger customers via targeting lists of what are known as “pre-optimized audiences” (groups of consumers who have been analyzed and identified as potential customers for various products). Like other retailers, Kroger has a data and ad deal with video streaming companies, including Disney and Roku. Its alliance with Disney enables it to take advantage of that entertainment company’s major data-marketing assets, including AI tools and the ability to target consumers using its “250 million user IDs.”Likewise, the Albertsons “Media Collective” division promises advertisers that its retail media “platform” connects them to “over 100 million consumers.” It offers similar marketing opportunities for grocery brands as Kroger, including targeting on its website, app and also when its customers are off-site. Albertsons has partnerships across the commercial surveillance advertising spectrum, including with Google, the Trade Desk, Pinterest, Criteo and Meta/Facebook. It also has a video streaming data alliance involving global advertising agency giant Omnicom that expands its reach with viewers of Comcast’s NBCUniversal division, as well as with Paramount and Warner Bros./Discovery.Both Kroger and Albertsons partner with many of the same powerful identity-data companies, including data-marketing and cross-platform leaders LiveRamp and the Trade Desk. Through these relationships, the two grocery chains are connected to a vast network of databrokers that provide ready access to customer health, financial, and geolocation information, for example. The two grocery chains also work with the same “retail data cloud” company that further extends their marketing impact. Further compounding the negative competitive and privacy threats from this deal is its role in providing ongoing “closed-loop” consumer tracking to better perfect the ways retailers and advertisers measure the effectiveness of their marketing. They know precisely what you bought, browsed and viewed—in store and at home.Antitrust NGOs, trade unions and state attorneys-general have sounded the alarm about the pending Albertsons/Kroger deal, including its impact on prices, worker rights and consumer access to services. As the FTC nears a decision point on this merger, it should make clear that such transactions, which undermine competition, privacy, and expand the country’s commercial surveillance apparatus, should not be permitted.This article was originally published by Tech Policy Press.

Contact: David Monahan, Fairplay, david@fairplayforkids.orgContact: Jeff Chester, CDD, jeff@democraticmedia.org BREAKING: Advocates Decry Meta’s Attempt to Shut Down the FTCIn response to an order that would prohibit Meta from monetizing minors’ data, the social media company has filed a suit claiming the agency’s structure is unconstitutional. WASHINGTON, DC – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2023 – Advocates for children and privacy condemned a lawsuit filed last evening by Meta against the Federal Trade Commission that seeks to shut the agency down by asserting the Commission’s structure is unconstitutional.  Meta’s suit comes in response to a proposed FTC order prohibiting Meta from monetizing children’s data for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) while already operating under a Consent Decree for multiple serious privacy violations. Earlier this week, Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a motion filed by Meta that claimed the FTC had no authority to modify its previous settlement. Now Meta is escalating its attacks on the Commission’s authority.Meta has posed a threat to the privacy and welfare of young people in the U.S. for many years, as it targeted them to further its data-driven commercial surveillance advertising system. Scandal after scandal has exposed the company’s blatant disregard for children and youth, with nearly daily headlines about its irresponsible actions coming from former employees turned whistleblowers and major multi-state and bi-partisan investigations of states attorneys-general.  Despite multiple attempts by regulators to contain Meta’s ongoing undermining of its user privacy, including through multiple FTC consent decrees, it is evident that a substantive remedy is required to safeguard US youth. Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have issued these comments on today's announcement of a Meta lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission: Josh Golin, Executive Director, Fairplay: “While many have noted social media’s role in fueling the mental health crisis, the Federal Trade Commission has taken actual meaningful action to protect young people online by its order prohibiting serial privacy offender Meta from monetizing minor’s data. So it’s not surprising that Meta is launching this brazen attack on the Commission, especially given the company may have $200 billion in COPPA liability according to recently unsealed documents. Anyone who cares about the wellbeing of children– and the safety of American consumers – should rally to the defense of the Commission and be deeply concerned about the lengths Meta will go to preserve its ability to profit at the expense of young people.”  Katharina Kopp, Director of Policy, Center for Digital Democracy: “For decades Meta has put the maximization of profits from so-called behavioral advertising above the best interests of children and teens. Meta’s failure to comply repeatedly with its 2012 and 2020 settlements with the FTC, including its non-compliance with the federal children’s privacy law (COPPA), and the unique developmental vulnerability of minors, justifies the FTC to propose the modifications of Meta’s consent decree and to require it to stop profiting from the data it gathers on children and teens.  It should not surprise anybody then that Meta is now going after the FTC with its lawsuit. But this attack on the FTC is essentially an attack on common sense regulation to curtail out-of-control commercial power and an attack on our children, teenagers, and every one of us.” John Davisson, Director of Litigation, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC): “It seems there's no legal theory, however far-fetched, that Meta won't deploy to avoid a full accounting of its harmful data practices. The reason is clear. A hearing before the FTC will confirm that Meta continues to mishandle personal data and put the privacy and safety of minors at risk, despite multiple orders not to do so. The changes FTC is proposing to Meta's exploitative business model can't come soon enough. We hope the court will reject Meta's latest attempt to run out the clock, as another federal court did just this week.” ### 

Contextual advertising is said to be privacy-safe because it eliminates the need for cookies, third-party trackers, and the processing of other personal data. Marketers and policy makers are placing much stock in the future of contextual advertising, viewing it as the solution to the privacy-invasive targeted advertising that heavily relies on personal data.However, the current state of contextual advertising does not look anything like our plain understanding of it in contrast to today's dominant mode of behavioral advertising: placing ads next to preferred content, based on keyword inclusion or exclusion. Instead, industry practices are moving towards incorporating advanced AI analysis of content and its classification, user-level data, and insights into content preferences of online visitors, all while still referring to “contextual advertising.” It is crucial for policymakers to carefully examine this rapidly evolving space and establish a clear definition of what “contextual advertising” should entail. This will prevent the emergence of toxic practices and outcomes, similar to what we have witnessed with surveillance-based behavioral marketing, from becoming the new normal.Let’s recall the reasons for the strong opposition to surveillance-based marketing practices so we can avoid those harms regarding contextual advertising. Simply put, the two main reasons are privacy harms and harms from manipulation. Behavioral advertising is deeply invasive when it comes to privacy, as it involves tracking users online and creating individual profiles based on their behavior over time and across different platforms and across channels. These practices go beyond individual privacy violations and also harm groups of people, perpetuating or even exacerbating historical discrimination and social inequities.The second main reason why many oppose surveillance-based marketing practices is the manipulative nature of commercial messaging that aims to exploit users’ vulnerabilities. This becomes particularly concerning when vulnerable populations, like children, are targeted, as they may not have the ability to resist sophisticated influences on their decision-making. More generally, the behavioral advertising business heavily incentivizes companies to optimize their practices for monetizing attention and selling audiences to advertisers, leading to many associated harms.New and evolving practices in contextual advertising should raise questions for policy makers. They should consider whether the harms we sought to avoid with behavioral marketing may resurface in these new advertising practices as well.Today’s contextual advertising methods are taking advantage of the latest analytical technologies to interpret online content so that contextual ads will likely soon be able to manipulate us just as behavioral ads can. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, natural language processing models for tone and sentiment analysis, computer vision, audio analysis, and more are being used to consider a multitude of factors and in this way “dramatically improve the effectiveness of contextual targeting.” Gumgum’s Verity, for example, “scans text, image, audio and video to derive human-like understandings.” Attention measures – the new performance metric that advertisers crave – indicate that contextual ads are more effective than non-contextual ads. Moments.AI, a “real-time contextual targeting solution” by the Verve Group, for example, allows brands to move away from clicks and to “optimize towards consumer attention instead,” for “privacy-first” advertising solutions.Rather than analyzing one single URL or one article at a time, marketers can analyze a vast range of URLs and can “understand content clusters and topics that audiences are engaging with at that moment” and so use contextual targeting at scale. The effectiveness and sophistication of contextual advertising allows marketers to use it not just for enhancing brand awareness, but also for targeting prospects. In fact, the field of “neuroprogammatic” advertising “goes beyond topical content matching to target the subconscious feelings that lead consumers to make purchasing decisions,” according to one industry observer. Marketers can take advantage of how consumers “are feeling and thinking, and what actions they may or may not be in the mood to take, and therefore how likely are to respond to an ad. Neuroprogrammatic targeting uses AI to cater to precisely what makes us human.”These sophisticated contextual targeting practices may have negative effects similar to those of behavioral advertising, however. For instance, contextual ads on weight loss programs can be placed alongside content related to dieting and eating disorders due to its semantic, emotional, and visual content. This may have disastrous consequences similar to targeted behavioral ads aimed at teenagers with eating disorders. Therefore, it is important to question how different these practices are from individual user tracking and ad targeting. If content can be analyzed and profiled along very finely tuned classification schemes, advertisers don’t need to track users across the web. They simply need to track the content that will deliver the relevant audience and engage individuals based on their interests and feelings.Apart from the manipulative nature of contextual advertising, the use of personal data and associated privacy violations are also concerning. Many contextual ad tech companies claim to engage in contextual targeting “without any user data.” But, in fact, so-called contextual ad tech companies often rely on session data such as browser and page-level data, device and app-level data, IP address, and “whatever other info they can get their hands on to model the potential user,” framing it as “contextual 2.0.” Until recently, this practice might have been more accurately referred to as device fingerprinting. The claim is that session data is not about tracking, but only about the active session and usage at one point in time. No doubt, however, the line between contextual and behavioral advertising becomes blurry when such data is involved.Location-based targeting is another aspect of contextual advertising that raises privacy concerns. Should location-based targeting be considered contextual? Uber’s “Journey Ads” lets advertisers target users based on their destination. A trip to a restaurant might trigger alcohol ads; a trip to the movie theater might result in ads for sugary beverages. According to AdExchanger, Uber claims that it is not “doing any individual user-based targeting” and suggests that it is a form of contextual advertising.Peer 39 also includes location data in its ad-targeting capabilities and still refers to these practices as contextual advertising. The use of location data can reveal some of the most sensitive information about a person, including where she works, sleeps, socializes, worships, and seeks medical treatment. When combined with session data, the information obtained from sentiment, image, video, and location analysis can be used to create sophisticated inferences about individuals, and ads placed in this context can easily clash with consumer expectations of privacy.Furthermore, placing contextual ads next to user-generated content or within chat groups changes the parameters of contextual targeting. Instead of targeting the content itself, the ad becomes easily associated with an individual user. Reddit’s “contextual keyword targeting” allows advertisers to target by community and interests, discussing LGBTQ+ sensitive topics, for example. This is similar to the personalized nature of targeted behavioral advertising, and can thus raise privacy concerns.Cohort targeting, also referred to as “affinity targeting” or “content affinity targeting,” further blurs the line between behavioral and contextual advertising by combining content analytics with audience insights. “This bridges the gap between Custom Cohorts and your contextual signals, by taking learning from consented users to targeted content where a given Customer Cohort shows more engagement than the site average,” claims Permutive.Oracle uses various cohorts with demographic characteristics, including age, gender, and income, for example, as well as “lifestyle” and “retail” interests, to understand what content individuals are more likely to consume. While reputedly “designed for privacy from the ground up,” this approach allows Oracle to analyze what an audience cohort views and to “build a profile of the content types they’re most likely to engage with,” allowing advertisers to find their “target customers wherever they are online.” Playground XYZ enhances contextual data with eye-tracking data from opt-in panels, which measures attention and helps to optimize which content is most “eye-catching,” “without the need for cookies or other identifiers.”Although these practices may seem privacy neutral (relying on small samples of online users or “consented users”), they still allow advertisers to target and manipulate their desired audience. Message targeting based on content preferences of fine-tuned demographic characteristics (household income less than $20K or over $500K, for example) can lead to discriminatory practices and disparate impact that can deepen social inequities, just like the personalized targeting of online users.Hyper-contextual content analysis with a focus on measuring sentiment and attention, the use of session information, placing ads next to user-generated content as well as within interest group chats, and employing audience panels to profile content are emerging practices in contextual advertising that require critical examination. The touted privacy-first promise of contextual advertising is deceptive. It seems that contextual advertising is more manipulative, invasive of privacy, and likely to contribute to discrimination and perpetuate inequities among consumers than we all initially thought.What’s more, the convergence of highly sensitive content analytics with content profiling based on demographic characteristics (and potentially more), could result in even more potent digital marketing practices than those currently being deployed. By merging contextual data with behavioral data, marketers might gain a more comprehensive understanding of their target audience and develop more effective messaging. Additionally, we can only speculate about how modifications to the incentive structure for content delivery of audiences to advertisers might impact content quality.In the absence of policy intervention, these developments may lead to a surveillance system that is even more formidable than the one we currently have. Contextual advertising will not serve as a solution to surveillance-based “behavioral” marketing and its manipulative and privacy invasive nature, let alone the numerous other negative consequences associated with it, including the addictive nature of social media, the promotion of disinformation, and threats to public health.It is vital to formulate a comprehensive and up-to-date definition of contextual advertising that takes into consideration the adverse effects of surveillance advertising and strives to mitigate them. Industry self-regulation cannot be relied on, and legislative proposals do not adequately address the complexities of contextual advertising. The FTC’s 2009 definition of contextual advertising is also outdated in light of the advancements and practices described here. Regulatory bodies like the FTC must assess contemporary practices and provide guidelines to safeguard consumer privacy and ensure fair marketing practices. The FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule update and its Commercial Surveillance and Data Security Rule provide opportunity to get it right.Failure to intervene may ultimately result in the emergence of a surveillance system disguised as consumer-friendly marketing. This article was originally published by Tech Policy Press.