Post Tagged with: "targeted ads"

back to drawing board by Michael Kötter (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dqQzTn

Back to the Drawing Board: Bell Drops Opt-Out Targeted Ad Program

Days after the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released its decision that found that Bell was violating Canadian privacy law with its targeted ad program, the communications giant advised that it is withdrawing its program and deleting all customer profiles. A company spokesperson stated yesterday that Bell plans to re-introduce the program using an opt-in consent approach. That would likely require more than just a change to the privacy policy since the company would need to provide customers with incentives or compensation to get much acceptance to be voluntarily tracked.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that Bell’s targeted advertising program, which creates customer profiles that include age, gender, account location, credit score, pricing plan, and average revenue per user, generated controversy from the moment it was announced in October 2013. The communications giant maintained that it complied with Canadian privacy laws, yet many clearly disagreed as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada received an unprecedented barrage of complaints.

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Rules Bell’s Targeted Ad Program Violates Canadian Law

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has released the long-awaited decision on Bell’s targeted ads program. The Commissioner’s press release soft-pedals the outcome – “Bell advertising program raises privacy concerns” – but the decision is clear: Bell’s so-called relevant ads program violates Canadian privacy law. As I wrote earlier this year, the key issue in the case centered on whether Bell should be permitted to use an opt-out consent mechanism in which its millions of customers are all included in targeted advertising unless they take pro-active steps to opt-out, or if an opt-in consent model is more appropriate. Given the detailed information collected and used by Bell, I argued that opt-in consent was the right approach.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada agrees:

In our view, for the reasons expressed above, the RAP clearly involves the use of sensitive personal information. As such, the sensitivity of the information at issue leads us to the conclusion that Bell must obtain express consent for the RAP in the circumstances. This conclusion is further supported by our assessment of the reasonable expectations of Bell Customers, which is set out below.