Contextual Advertising Should Be Great for Privacy, But It Risks Being Undermined
We’ve been discussing the privacy advantages of contextual advertising – a system that places ads based on a webpage’s content and not who’s viewing it (also known as behavioral advertising) – for over four years now. In a clear sign that the tide is turning against surveillance-led behavioral advertising, the adtech industry itself is starting to move towards the contextual approach.
For example, in January 2020, the company Smartology launched SmartMatch, claiming that it embraced “the new era of privacy, targeting branded content to users in the moment they are interested in a topic, on context alone, protecting user privacy by not resorting to cookies, fingerprinting or personalised targeting of any kind.” The same year, Google launched “dynamic lineups powered by advanced contextual targeting.” In 2022, Verve Group announced Moments.AI, a “privacy-first,” real-time contextual targeting solution.
The mention of AI there is symptomatic of a wider shift towards applying artificial intelligence to contextual marketing. As well as using AI to carry out a deeper and more intelligent analysis of editorial material that goes beyond just looking at key words, there are approaches like neuroprogrammatic advertising. On the AdMonster site, Charles Cantu explains that it works:
by matching the emotional content of the ad to the content with which the consumer is engaging, and thereby the emotions of the consumer.
For example, a celebratory and optimistic ad that seeks to find a consumer in a hopeful mood to trigger an inspirational, discretionary purchase should not appear next to content likely to elicit anger or sadness.
The embrace by the adtech world of contextual advertising seems good news. People in advertising are openly acknowledging that traditional, behavioral advertising is hostile to privacy, and that demands for better privacy – not least from the EU – will force advertisers to change their methods, whether they want to or not. The emerging consensus in the adtech world that the solution to this problem is contextual advertising is also welcome. But an important post by Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Democracy and Director for Policy, warns that the enthusiastic uptake of the idea by the advertising world brings with it the danger that it may be hijacked in the process, leaving the public worse off than before.
Her article in Tech Policy Press runs through the various ways in which contextual advertising is being distorted and subverted by the latest adtech approaches. For example, she notes that neuroprogrammatic advertising might work too well, pinpointing people’s personal and psychological vulnerabilities. She gives the example of contextual ads for weight loss programs that are placed alongside material related to dieting. Research has shown that this can have disastrous consequences for teenagers with eating disorders.
Kopp also notes that claims by contextual adtech companies that they work without collecting user data may not always be true. Some companies rely on session data such as browser and page-level data, device and app-level data, IP addresses, and other highly personal elements. In some cases, this may be combined with contextual information to provide an even more complete picture of the people they’re targeting:
the convergence of highly sensitive content analytics with content profiling based on demographic characteristics (and potentially more), could result in even more potent digital marketing practices than those currently being deployed. By merging contextual data with behavioral data, marketers might gain a more comprehensive understanding of their target audience and develop more effective messaging. Additionally, we can only speculate about how modifications to the incentive structure for content delivery of audiences to advertisers might impact content quality.
Alongside such blatant breaches of trust, there are more subtle issues. As an article by Allison Schiff in AdExchanger asks, when does contextual advertising cross the line into behavioral targeting? She points to an article about Uber’s “journey ads,” launched the year before:
A rider’s destination and where they often travel is a powerful targeting tool, and one that doesn’t involve user-level information or targeting capabilities, [Uber’s] Grether told AdExchanger.
“We’re not doing any individual user-based targeting,” he said. “I think contextual is a better way of thinking about it.”
As Schiff comments, this use of a person’s intended location as a targeting signal is probably not what most people would consider to be contextual. Kopp concludes her piece with a suggestion as to how to address this new threat to privacy that arises from lack of clarity about what exactly constitutes contextual advertising:
It is vital to formulate a comprehensive and up-to-date definition of contextual advertising that takes into consideration the adverse effects of surveillance advertising and strives to mitigate them. Industry self-regulation cannot be relied on, and legislative proposals do not adequately address the complexities of contextual advertising. The US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 2009 definition of contextual advertising is also outdated in light of the advancements and practices described here. Regulatory bodies like the FTC must assess contemporary practices and provide guidelines to safeguard consumer privacy and ensure fair marketing practices.
Kopp’s warning is particularly timely now that the battle to move from today’s intrusive, surveillance-based behavioral advertising to a more privacy-friendly contextual version seems close to being won. Governments around the world would do well to heed it and build on her idea of establishing a clear and enforceable definition of the approach before it is too late.