Phorm; good or bad form?
March 17, 2008
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has come out as against the planned Phorm advert and tracking network today (more here from the BBC).
It was announced a couple of weeks ago that leading ISP’s were planning to use Phorm as a platform to serve up targeted adverts to ISP registrants. It’s been touted as a great way to provide more relevant ads to users and all the initial talk seemed like PR spin designed to mask any potential privacy issues.
Now at last the privacy issues are getting a good airing!
Personally I’m against my ISP using the data of my surfing habits for advertising purposes. I use my ISP for access to the internet, I do not expect them to share my data on surfing habits with anyone (unless asked to by the authorities…).
Other blogs are asking what the fuss is about this and comparing Phorm to behavioral targeting technologies in use on retail websites. I disagree with this completely as this is going to collect data at the ISP level and share it with any websites which serve adverts through Phorm, this makes it far more pervasive.
An interesting question has to be asked though; how does this differ to Google / Doubleclick? If Google starts to share behavioral search data with Doubleclicks ad serving platform isn’t that going to be similarly invasive to users privacy? Potentially; although at least we expect that from Google as an ad revenue based business…
Interestingly, the BBC has just published a story that states that the Foundation for Information Policy Research has claimed that Phorm could well be illegal. They believe Phorm contravenes the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), which protects users from unlawful interception of information.
This has the potential to get very interesting and could open up other networks and ad serving technologies to scrutiny.
EU to clear Google – DoubleClick
March 6, 2008
Looks like Google may get it’s way and finally secure the acquisition of DoubleClick.
Will be interesting to see how this is handled and exactly what Google does to integrate tools and workforce when (if) if goes through!
Google not quite the biggest ad revenue platform in the UK
February 19, 2008
But nearly…
Google has come in for the year at £1.3B of ad revenue from the UK alone. Estimates say that the TV channel ITV1 will come in at around £1.32B plus some £100M in sponsorship.
This is still pretty awesome from Google and they should take the lead next year as mobile expands and advertising moves to other platforms (and if they ever get DoubleClick properly into the fold).
More from the Guardian.
U.S. internet advertising grew by 27% in 2007
February 12, 2008
The IDC have announced that the market for U.S. internet advertising grew by a massive 27% in 2007.
Interestingly though, while Google grew by 40% year on year in Q4 that was down on their growth a year earlier. That made their market share slip by 0.5%, but they do still own over 23% of the market. Something to do with the coming saturation of search marketing perhaps?
IDC says a merged Microsoft-Yahoo would command 17% of the U.S. online ad market, so still not enough to topple Google from the top spot.
One wonders if the figures for Google include DoubleClick yet??
Yes Google does get DoubleClick!
December 20, 2007
This just in…
After my post earlier today about the murmurs that Google would get DoubleClick approval I can now inform you that it’s happened!
That was quick! The FTC voted 4-1 in favour of the deal and concluded that the deal would not substantially lessen competition.
Well done Google! Look forward to seeing the first development come out of this partnership!
Facebook to use cookies for an ad network
October 30, 2007
Both Techcrunch and Venture Beat have posts about the forthcoming (still rumoured though) ad technology from Facebook. Word is that it will use cookies to track users data and activity on Facebook and then serve them ads based on that data when they leave the social network and browse other web properties.
Sound idea! Facebook profiles carry a wealth of data that could be of use to ad serving technologies.
Now, this won’t work unless there is a third party cookie involved which is tied to the ad network and not Facebook. Otherwise the cookie would only be of use to serve ads while on the Facebook site. So will this cookie be part of Microsofts ad serving technology, another third party ad network who Facebook could sell the data to or will Facebook go it alone and set up an ad network?
It’s an opportunity for Facebook to make some serious money, although I really doubt the valuation touted by Venture Beat. $100 billion will not be seen from an online company in the near future I’d be willing to bet. The ads served through this technology will be very targetted though (potentially more than ever before), great news for those of us in online travel who suffer high CPM’s and low clickthroughs due to the lack of targetting data available currently.
Only issue with this is the prevalance of cookie blocking technology. Any ad network using this cookie will get listed on all the blocking sites and software very quickly and also the knowledge that this is happening could turn off a large amount of Facebook users very quickly.
It’s supposed to be announced on the 6th November, so I’ll reserve final judgement until then. Perhaps Double Click will be the partner of choice 
Google outshines ITV in advertising war
October 30, 2007
Google has now overtaken ITV1 as the biggest recipient of advertising revenue in the UK according to the Times.
It’s been coming for a while as Google have been raking in the pounds as they expand their advertising into other sectors and functions. Google are expected to overtake the whole of ITV plc by the end of 2008.
What would make this interesting is the Doubleclick deal. The deal has just been approved by the Australian competition regulator, a first step for Google to get the deal as a whole approved. Now it just remains for the U.S. and EU regulators to okay it. The addition of Doubleclick revenue to Google’s advertising coffers could make it one of the biggest recipients of ad revenue in the world!
