AT&T Sends Mixed Message On Behavioral Advertising

Ian Lamont writes "An advertising company that runs a 'targeting marketplace' and partner AT&T are playing down the telecommunications giant's use of its services after AT&T's chief privacy officer told a House subcommittee yesterday that the company does not engage in behavioral advertising. The AT&T executive testified (PDF) to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet that AT&T would not use behavioral advertising methods without informed customer consent. However, AudienceScience, a company that records 'billions of behavioral events daily' has apparently worked for AT&T since 2005. After the hearing, AudienceScience removed a client testimonial relating to AT&T from its website, so 'all the appropriate parties [have] consistent messaging,' its CEO said. An AT&T spokesman also said that the testimony was talking about AT&T's role as an ISP, not an advertiser."

Comments

800 numbers and LL Bean

[kris_lang]

In the past, L.L. Bean and American Express all experimented with greeting customers by name when they called. They did this by linking the ANI information received on their incoming 1-800-telephonenumber line with a computerized database. People were creeped out to have a person greet them by their name before they'd even said "Hello", and both American Express and L.L. Bean stopped doing this. Affinity marketing campaigns also did this and the FTC regulated this away, partially.

link to ftc pdf, see page 42 and other.

What ATT is trying to hide about what they've already done is steps beyond this.

kris

Re:Fantastic

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why do you think that telcoms are bidding so enthusiastically for the 10^19hz spectrum allocation?

"Mixed Message" = "Lying"

[Doc Ruby]

What is "Mixed Message" supposed to mean? When testifying to Congress, witnesses are required by law to tell the truth. Saying you don't do something when you do is lying.

I understand that Congress does whatever AT&T wants (wiretapping is power), calls whatever AT&T does whatever AT&T wants. But since when did Slashdot become corporate mass media, afraid to call lying "lying"?

Re:"Mixed Message" = "Lying"

[HangingChad]

But since when did Slashdot become corporate mass media, afraid to call lying "lying"?

Corporations owe no allegiance to the truth but sometimes the interesting question is why they're lying. And why are they so anxious to erase their tracks? Liability or regulation...they're not worried about competition. The US market in telecommunications isn't a free market, it's a cartel.

Figure out what they're afraid you'll know why they're lying. Like the oil companies. They're keeping up the PR assault to try and distract people from the fact they're throttling domestic oil production in the face of lower prices. No point extracting expensive oil at $47 a barrel when they can still make a margin buying from the Saudis. So waive the flag to distract from the uncomfortable reality that big oil is willing to let our national security suffer if they can make a margin on the status quo. And air those slick commercials with the PR gal telling us how they're doing so much for domestic exploration.

That's just being sleazy and two-faced. What AT&T is displaying is fear. They're afraid of something. This isn't a PR embarrassment, there's liability, serious liability. Hand in the cookie jar, massive regulation kind of liability. Maybe they were using non-identifiable data aggregates from the wiretaps as a marketing tool? It'll be something like that.

It's always sparks my curiosity to discover what's in a hole someone is anxious to fill in.