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Site Search DAA to Senate: For Consumer Choice, Build on What Already Works
Washington, D.C. – Rather than embrace recent browsers, implementations from Microsoft and Mozilla that undermine the balance in today’s ad-supported Internet ecosystem, lawmakers and technologists should instead reaffirm their support for the program that is already providing consumers with robust choice and control over their own data, Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Managing Director Lou Mastria said today in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation.
The DAA, which administers a rigorous, nationwide self-regulatory program that provides consumers with transparency and control over how and whether they receive interest-based online ads, was invited to testify on the development of voluntary consumer choice mechanisms. The Commerce Committee is currently considering “Do Not Track” legislation that would have far-reaching implications for interest-based advertising, responsible online data collection and the future of ad-supported Internet content.
Mastria called on all stakeholders, including Microsoft and Mozilla, to remove impediments that are preventing implementation of browser-driven choice for consumers. “The DAA program provides consumers with an easy-to use and uniform choice mechanism that is better adapted to the fast changing Internet marketplace than legislative approaches, and it does so without damaging the economic engine that supports the vast majority of free Internet content,” Mastria said. “Today we are urging lawmakers to take a closer look at what we’ve accomplished through collaboration and engagement, and to work with us to increase consumer awareness and make our program even better.”
In a recent poll commissioned by the DAA, more than 90 percent of Americans said that free, ad-supported content is important to the overall value of the Internet, and more than 65 percent said they’d like at least some of the ads they see to be tailored to their interests.
Top-down actions by either Congress or large browser makers threaten the future of both free ad-supported content and relevant, tailored advertising, Mastria warned.
A copy of DAA’s testimony is available at www.aboutads.info.
About The DAA Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising
The DAA (www.aboutads.info) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (www.youradchoices.com) was launched in 2010 by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a consortium of the nation’s largest media and marketing associations including the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). These associations and their thousands of members are committed to developing effective self-regulatory solutions to consumer choice for web-viewing data.