Targeting of Television Advertising
NYT article on new technologies allowing more precise targeting of television advertising. I think this sentence captures the evolving environment: “The television commercial – a blunt instrument that often reaches as many disinterested people as desired ones – is beginning…
DoNotCall.gov
Tonight I looked through donotcall.gov, the FTC-operated website where people can register telephone numbers for the Federal do-not-call list. Two observations: 1) There is zero authentication that the person registering a phone number actually is the subscriber for that number….
Eye-Tracking Studies and Mandatory Disclosures
In writing about the Eyetools eye-tracking technology, Chris Sherman says: “In one study, for example, Eyetools inserted gibberish into E*Trade’s homepage to illustrate that content in a “visual dead zone” doesn’t get read and might as well not exist. Some…
NY Times on Video News Releases from the US Government
If you want another good reason not to watch TV news, read this lengthy damning indictment by the New York Times. The article describes how TV news shows often broadcast video news releases prepared by the US government without clarifying…
FTC v. CartManager
The FTC obtained a settlement from CartManager. CartManager operates shopping cart functionality as a service for third party website customers. CartManager used personal information from the shopping carts in conflict with customers’ privacy policies presented to users. We have seen…
Penenberg on WSJ and Search Engines
Adam Penenberg argues that the Wall Street Journal eventually will become irrelevant because its subscription model (1) makes its content invisible to the search engines, and (2) prevents bloggers from linking to it. I think he’s right. Our assessments of…
Avoiding Attention Distractions
Katie Hafner writes a good article on the difficulties we have avoiding distractions when we use our computer. It’s so true! There are so many temptations and messages competing for our attention. I know I struggle with this—there’s always something…
Pornmeister Liable for Affiliate’s Spam
A settlement involving Sobonito Investments, a Cyprus pornmeister that used an affiliate marketing scheme to generate traffic. The affiliates engaged in bad email practices, and the advertiser was put on the hook. This situation is clearly covered by CAN-SPAM but…