The first is the plan relies on the exploitation of copyright content (without regard to the copyright owners licence). Why would anyone consent to their content being used to promote their competitors through behavioural targeting?

Secondly, it is interception of the private communication between non-consenting web sites/ecommerce sites and their visitors. It is not simply a question of reading a web site, it is deriving valuable intelligence about a customers relationship with a web site by monitoring their communication.

You say “Having the ability to target our prospective consumer based on their past web surfing history, we can more accurately gauge what products or services this consumer would be “in market” for.”

That web surfing history is the private communication between eCommerce web services and their customers. Marketeers can’t expect to be granted access to that data.

But lets suppose ISPs do that. Lets suppose politicians let them get away with ’self regulation’.

If communication service providers cannot be trusted, the web sites creators are going to respond by encrypting all their traffic, sueing ISPs for copyright abuse and wiretapping.

At that point, the cunning behavioural targeting plan suddenly looks a bit rubbish.

Ultimately, its unencrypted data communications we’re talking about here. Email is unencrypted data communication, why not intercept that too? Voip is unencrypted data communication, why not intercept that too? If voip, why not my domestic phone, thats unencrypted why not intercept that too? My mail, its on paper, but hey its data, and its not encrypted either… so why not intercept my post as well?

It simply must never happen. It undermines the basis for all personal/commercial private communication.

Pete

Very dynamic post and very thoughtful opinion.

I think one of the problems here for folks looking at this from the outside looking in (i.e. politicians) is that the industry is moving so quickly.

As Ian Lee pointed out in part one of your series, cookies and behavioral advertising in general has gotten a very bad rap because of how poorly the industr was perceived (rightly so) in the early days. At first there was no regulation and nobody knew any better.

Now the industry has grown and matured and the existing regulation that is in place creates a situation where behavorial technology actually improves the online experience (see Jason’s comment in part two of your series, for instance.)

The client case study points out the power of behavioral advertising for those advertisers who may be on the fence about testing it. To me it just makes more sense to segment your audience versus doing RON CPM / CPC media buys. Also, the idea of putting your message in front of users that have expressed a pattern of behavior consistent with your message seems smart.

Thanks for your work on this series.

Keep the posts coming.

Kris