EDAA Self Regulatory Program for online behavioral advertising extends to mobile devices
At the EDAA Summit in Brussels, the European Digital Advertising Alliance announced new Mobile Principles to extend the EDAA Self Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising to the mobile environment.
Differences in the EU and US principles
Broadly, this move aligns the EDAA with its partner organization in the U.S., the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), which released Mobile Guidelines to amend its principles in mid-2013. There are, however, two notable differences between the EU and the U.S. framework.
Use of the icon
In the EDAA Mobile Principles, there is a requirement that the enhanced notice mechanism inside a mobile ad is the Icon or Icon & AdMarker specifically, rather than allowing any conspicuous mark embedded in the ad creative that links to a notice page.
Use of device data
In the EDAA Mobile Principles, there is a slight difference in how information on a mobile device is classified. In the U.S. DAA guidelines, there is a reference to “Personal Directory Data” being used for interest-based advertising requiring enhanced notice and choice (i.e., requiring the Icon).
In the EDAA Mobile Principles, that data is redefined as “Personal Device Data” and changed to require enhanced notice and choice. This small change in verbiage means that any ad targeted to a user based on information gathered from other applications they have on their device is, according to the EDAA, an Interest Based Ad that requires enhanced notice and choice (i.e., requires the icon).
Impact of the changes
Point one above closes a small loophole that allows a company in the U.S. not to license the Icon for mobile usage and instead use a different icon to notify consumers. The main goal of the change in point one is to have the industry normalize a single symbol for managing consumer privacy so that consumers are not confused.
Point two above is a much broader change, affecting most CPI & CPC-focused Companies in the ad-serving chain. This change means that companies gathering information about other apps on a user’s device will need to serve the icon in ads.
Since this is a common practice to understand a user based on the types of applications s/he downloads, this may be a major change for the performance advertising side of the industry.
