program areas Digital Health

What connects cable, online and on demand viewers? NCC Digital Video. NCC’s approach to advertising reaches premium voter audiences across all screens. Only NCC has the unrivaled ability to target authenticated subscribers in a variety of ways across premium cable content and websites. And with our targeting technology, NCC can continue to target this subscriber as well as additional specific audiences throughout the web. NCC A+ Political Advertising gathers first party voter data from all 50 states and offers list matching Premium in-stream video ads run across all screens to an engaged, authenticated audience Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) facilitates ad insertion into premium cable programming in OnDemand viewing Premium High Impact Home Page and Sign-In page take overs give maximum brand exposure and impact NCC Political Media is proud of our partnerships with the most reputable research and data sources on US voters. Access to this intelligence allows us to provide you with superior intelligence on how to effectively reach the right voters in your preferred markets, on the best cable networks and online platforms. --- For more information, visit NCCMedia.com

Deep Root Analytics, a leading media & audience analytics company that creates data platforms for audience targeting and ad monitoring, announced today that it has expanded the number of audiences available with D2 Media Sales to enable political, corporate & advocacy advertisers to target Dish and DIRECTV households using proprietary audience segments. Deep Root Analytics has created 35 new proprietary audience segments based on their affinity scores on political & policy issues and interest in corporate responsibility efforts. These new audiences represent an increase in the Deep Root Analytics footprint to reach Dish & DIRECTV households above their initial announcement (link is external) in 2016 and brings its overall addressable audience offering to more than 60 unique audience segments. As such, Deep Root Analytics has pre-matched these segments to D2’s advertising platform, providing addressable TV advertising to nearly 23 million DIRECTV and DISH satellite households. “In 2017, advocacy and brand advertisers are navigating a tricky and fractured media landscape. They are especially keen to identify and efficiently reach audiences based on what they value and to drive their agenda and manage their brand reputations,” noted Deep Root Analytics CEO Brent McGoldrick. “At Deep Root Analytics, we are focused on helping them make their paid media as data-driven as possible. So, we are thrilled to work with D2 Media Sales and access their best-in-class addressable TV platform to enable our clients to directly communicate with nearly 23 million DIRECTV & DISH customers.” The 35 new proprietary segments created by Deep Root Analytics and made available for addressable advertising via D2 Media Sales include: --- For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2ep1l0U (link is external)

Political data firms on both sides of the aisle have bolstered their addressable TV capabilities. Today, Democratic data firm TargetSmart and Republican data outfit Data Trust each announced new partnerships with TV data providers. The outcome should be even more TV spots, especially from congressional campaigns, targeted to households of key voter segments than ever before. Data Trust, the data firm that manages a national voter file for Republicans and right-leaning groups, has partnered with FourthWall Media to match FourthWall's cable viewership data to Data Trust's voter data. The result will be a feed of TV viewer data updated daily and matched against Data Trust's voting history and demographic data. It was a year ago at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting in Minneapolis when Democratic data firm TargetSmart Communications unveiled the addressable TV and digital ad targeting capabilities it developed with data services firm Experian. Today, TargetSmart expanded its TV data offerings through a partnership with Tru Optik, which provides media consumption data for digital media and connected TV devices such as Roku, Xbox, and smart TVs. The company also has TV data deals with Rentrak and D2 Media Sales, which is a partnership between DISH and DirecTV/AT&T. "We're trying to get as many partnerships out there as possible," said Bill Russell, director of digital partnerships at TargetSmart. These sorts of voter and TV data deals are bringing the targeting capabilities of online advertising to TV ad buys, which historically have resulted in some wasted spending for political campaigns that would do better to target ads to desired voter groups rather than those less likely to support their candidates. The new approaches have grown in popularity following the 2012 election, when President Obama's re-election campaign famously employed innovative data-crunching methods for buying TV ads aimed at voters through programming rarely purchased by political advertisers. By partnering with more and more TV data and media firms, political data companies are bringing what was once accessible only to large statewide or national campaigns to smaller, down-ballot candidates. Through such relationships, political advertisers can reach pre-defined voter segments, such as likely Democratic or Republican voters, or custom groups of voters. --- For the full article, visit http://bit.ly/2wDaz4s (link is external)

Personal health wearable devices that consumers are using to monitor their heart rates, sleep patterns, calories, and even stress levels raise new privacy and security risks, according to a report released today by researchers at American University and the Center for Digital Democracy. Watches, fitness bands, and so-called “smart” clothing, linked to apps and mobile devices, are part of a growing “connected-health” system in the U.S., promising to provide people with more efficient ways to manage their own health. But while consumers may think that federal laws will protect their personal health information collected by wearables, the report found that the weak and fragmented health-privacy regulatory system fails to provide adequate safeguards. The report, Health Wearable Devices in the Big Data Era: Ensuring Privacy, Security, and Consumer Protection, provides an overview and analysis of the major features, key players, and trends that are shaping the new consumer-wearable and connected-health marketplace.“Many of these devices are already being integrated into a growing Big Data digital-health and marketing ecosystem, which is focused on gathering and monetizing personal and health data in order to influence consumer behavior,” the report explains. As the use of these devices becomes more widespread, and as their functionalities become increasingly sophisticated, “the extent and nature of data collection will be unprecedented.”The report documents a number of current digital-health marketing practices that threaten the privacy of consumer health information, including “condition targeting,” “look-alike modeling,” predictive analytics, “scoring,” and the real-time buying and selling of individual consumers. The technology of wearable devices makes them particularly powerful tools for data collection and digital marketing. For example, smartphones and other mobile devices already provide access to users’ location information, enabling marketers to target individuals wherever they are, based on analyses of “visitation patterns” and a host of other behavioral and demographic data.The report also explains how an emerging set of techniques and Big-Data practices are being developed to harness the unique capabilities of wearables—such as biosensors that track bodily functions, and “haptic technology” that enables users to “feel” actual body sensations. Pharmaceutical companies are poised to be among the major beneficiaries of wearable marketing.The report offers suggestions for how government, industry, philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions can work together to develop a comprehensive approach to health privacy and consumer protection in the era of Big Data and the Internet of Things. These include:Clear, enforceable standards for both the collection and use of information;Formal processes for assessing the benefits and risks of data use; andStronger regulation of direct-to-consumer marketing by pharmaceutical companies.“The connected-health system is still in an early, fluid stage of development,” explained Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD, professor at American University and a co-author of the report. “There is an urgent need to build meaningful, effective, and enforceable safeguards into its foundation.”Such efforts “will require moving beyond the traditional focus on protecting individual privacy, and extending safeguards to cover a range of broader societal goals, such as ensuring fairness, preventing discrimination, and promoting equity,” the report says.“In the wake of the recent election, the United States is on the eve of a major public debate over the future of its health-care system,” the report notes. “The potential of personal digital devices to reduce health-care spending will likely play an important role,” as lawmakers deliberate the fate of the Affordable Care Act. However, unless there are adequate regulatory safeguards in place, “consumers and patients could face serious risks to their privacy and security, and also be subjected to discrimination and other harms.”“Americans now face a growing loss of their most sensitive information, as their health data are collected and analyzed on a continuous basis, combined with information about their finances, ethnicity, location, and online and off-line behaviors,” said Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, and another co-author of the report. “Policy makers must act decisively to protect consumers in today’s Big Data era.”The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided funding for the report.The three authors of the report —Kathryn Montgomery, Jeff Chester, and Katharina Kopp—have played a leading role on digital privacy issues, and were responsible for the campaign during the 1990s that led to enactment by Congress of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).---Full report attached.

FameBit is an online marketplace that connects YouTubers with brands that are interested in advertising their products and services. This provides creators an opportunity to earn money with their content by partnering with brands that are relevant to their audience. Learn about Famebit, the Self-Service Influencer Marketing Platform. For more information, visit https://famebit.com/brands (link is external)

Chart: Here’s How 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist (link is external) For the full article visit, http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-5-tech-giants-make-billions/ (link is external)

Facebook should immediately release all documents describing how it collected and analyzed psychological information it recently (link is external) collected about its youngest users, some as young as 14, and college students, Public Citizen and a coalition of 25 groups said in a letter (link is external) to the corporation today. The groups are concerned about how this information might have been used or may be used in the future by marketers and others to take advantage of young people’s emotions, all without users’ knowledge. Marketing companies and Facebook have secretly moved to tap into teens’ emotions and developmental vulnerabilities strictly for profit, the letter says. The groups want to know how the data was used, when it was used, how many users were impacted and the names of the companies that received the data. “What began as a way for college students to keep in touch has morphed into a platform for brand-saturated marketing and psychological manipulation,” said Kristen Strader, campaign coordinator for Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert campaign. “It is incumbent upon Facebook as a cultural leader to protect, not exploit, the privacy of young people, especially when their vulnerable emotions are involved.” According to The Australian (link is external) newspaper, Facebook presented research to one of its advertisers that shows it collects sensitive data regarding young users’ emotions and “mood shifts.” The research detailed how Facebook can analyze sensitive user data in real time to determine how young users are communicating emotion, and at which points during the week they are doing so, the letter continued. Facebook’s research was conducted without users’ knowledge, which raises ethical concerns. “Because Facebook plays such a powerful role in the lives of teens, it must adopt a policy that respects and protects them,” said Dr. Kathryn Montgomery, professor of communication at American University and a consultant to the Center for Digital Democracy. “This should include not only strong safeguards for its advertising and data practices, but also clear limits on the kinds of research it conducts for marketing purposes. Under no circumstances should marketers be using emotional states, stress levels, biometric information or other highly sensitive data to target users. And this should apply to both young people and adults.” “Facebook needs to come clean and publicly release the full internal document, reported in The Australian, describing how Facebook collected and analyzed psychological information on high school students, college students and young users, said Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, European Union co-chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. “The burden of proof is on Facebook to document publicly that they don’t collect and use such information. We are concerned that companies don’t overreach and abuse their users’ fundamental right to privacy and data protection.” The public, its users and elected officials have a right to know how pervasive this research was, who was affected and how the company will ensure it does not occur again, the groups said. The only way to fully address those concerns is to publicly release the internal document and related materials, accompanied by a more detailed explanation from Facebook of what was intended, what happened and the company’s actual practices, the letter says. —30— --- See full PDF of letter to Facebook below.

The following can be attributed to Katharina Kopp, Policy Director, Center for Digital Democracy. --- Today’s House vote to overturn the first major Internet privacy protection for Americans, may be a win for ISP monopolies, but it’s a tragic loss for our democracy. Broadband providers, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, will now be able to sell our sensitive information to the highest bidder without first receiving our permission. We believe today’s misguided vote will unleash even more “Big Data” profiling and tracking of Americans, and spur an array of discriminatory practices. Without any restraints, ISPs will dramatically erode what should be an important American fundamental right—that of privacy. If President Trump allows this bill to become law, his Administration will place new burdens on hard-working Americans and their families—who will be at the mercy of a handful of digital giants. CDD and our allies, here and in the EU, pledge to continue our fight against the special interests that have gained new ways to control how we use the Internet and other digital media. Contact: Jeff Chester Executive Director Center for Digital Democracy Washington, DC. www. democraticmedia.org jeff@democraticmedia.org (link sends e-mail) 202-494-7100

This report provides a snapshot of five categories of marketing tactics used by fast food, snack food, and soft drink companies to target children and adolescents. These categories include: 1) creating immersive environments; 2) infiltrating social networks; 3) location-based and mobile marketing; 4) collecting personal data; and 5) studying and triggering the subconscious. Descriptions of these categories along with examples from the food and beverage industry are provided. The report concludes with a discussion of what advocates can do to protect children and adolescents from these harmful marketing tactics.