When I inserted “how do I” on my own Google toolbar, deleting a Facebook account actually came up beneath “how do I breathe lyrics”; as someone who listens to the radio about as often as I lactate, I discovered this was a song by R&B singer Mario, who begs the question “How do I breathe when you’re not by my side?” I suggest listening to the instructions at the beginning of Bush’s “Machinehead.” You know, Liz Phair also had a breathing problem a few years back — must be a lot of asthma in the music industry.

In other words, I wasn’t blown away by the news; however, a chart from Google trends shows the query has been on a steady rise over the last year, and particularly escalating since December 2009 when Facebook did a privacy policy overhaul.

In particular, Facebook is disenfranchising members of the tech media. It’s one thing for the whinging class to use the smallest hiccough as a means to boost pageviews; it’s another when tech writers and mavens start actually deleting their accounts and publicly crowing about it.

BusinessInsider reported that Engadget cofounder Peter Rojas and Matt Cuts, head of Google’s Webspam team, and some financial guru with a sweet coif named Paul Kedrosky all abandoned the Facebook ship, while ReadWriteWeb admitted that two of its staffers are now Facebook-free.

Thing is, it ain’t easy to delete your Facebook account. First, there’s a difference between deactivating and deleting, which makes sense — perhaps you don’t want to lose everything, but you need to take a break from ol’ FB. When you go the deactivation route, Facebook tries to dissuade you, even showing you pictures of friends that will “miss you” (because it’s not like you see these people in real life). However, if you choose to delete, your page can still be reconstituted if you log in within the next two weeks.

Gizmodo — when not fending off Apple’s shock troops — is encouraging users to delete their accounts. Particularly effective are these two charts that compare default data-sharing on the social network in 2005 and 2010.

The New York Times noted that Facebook’s privacy policy contains 5,380 words, which is longer than the U.S. Constitution (sans amendments), a terse 4,543 words. (Of course, it’s nowhere near the size of the U.S. tax code, which is reportedly over a million words and seven times as long as the Bible.) The privacy-related FAQ in Facebook’s help center stretches to 45,000 words.

“To opt out of full disclosure of most information, it is necessary to click through more than 50 privacy buttons, which then require choosing among a total of more than 170 options,” Nick Bilton reports. He also offers this helpful map to managing your privacy settings:

While I usually dismiss stories about the great Facebook exodus — they tend to have a couple of self-righteous hipsters as sources — it would seem Facebook is increasingly alienating users and initiatives such as “Instant Personalization” are being viewed as easy ways to capitalize on user information rather than additions to the user engagement.

Even Facebook’s brass is aware of this as they’ve called an emergency all hands meeting for this afternoon at 4 pm PST. Nick O’Neil of All Facebook prognosticates a temporary suspension of Instant Personalization will be the result.

In a rather contentious Q&A on NYTimes.com with Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president for public policy, the first submission summed up user discontent well:

“Why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why do I have to do a weekly ritual of checking to see what new holes you’ve slashed into the Facebook Security Blanket, so that I have to go and hide or delete yet more stuff? Are Facebook customers really pounding on your door screaming that they want more categories of their personal data to be available to marketers every few months?”

Certainly advertisers and marketers are salivating over the potential promised with all that data, but for users, it’s hard to see Facebook’s initiatives as anything but greedy. It’s certainly not what they signed up for.

Not surprising, Schrage’s response misses the boat, saying that Facebook’s efforts have been wrongly perceived.

“We don’t share your information with advertisers. Our targeting is anonymous. We don’t identify or share names. Period. Think of a magazine selling ads based on the demographics and perceived interests of its readers. We don’t sell the subscriber list.”

And if you don’t like that… Well, unsubscribe! Only it seems more are taking him up on that offer.

Frankly, it doesn’t help that Facebook’s response to user concern has been tone-deaf. This is the awesome site created by a college student to help connect people — well why do communications with users feel increasingly sterile and corporate? Even Twitter seems to keep a sense of humor in its back-and-forth with users.

What happened to the Mark Zuckerberg that handed out business cards that read “I’m CEO… Bitch”? Call it frat-boy behavior, but at least there was levity…

“We want to be trusted partners with our users in helping manage [privacy policy] tensions,” Schrage writes on the Q&A. There’s the t-word again — trust — and “trusted partners”… Sheesh, isn’t that how Facebook describes its relationships with everybody these days? Does the term really mean anything?

With all this controversy, it’s hard not to think of the downfall of MySpace. One of the chief reason the site is dying is because it put advertising revenue ahead of user experience. Certainly Facebook’s approach on the matter has been far different — more nuanced than a barrage of belly-fat ads — but ultimately increasing revenue is playing second fiddle to user satisfaction, even if Facebook argues it’s just not doing a good job of communicating policy changes.

We in the advertising industry may lament not being able to reach Facebook user data, but unhappy (and disappearing) users will not good targeting make.

The next question is how will users receive location-based status updates that effectively allow users to check in like on Foursqaure? As noted by current players in the location-based mobile network space, the privacy issues will be monumental.

“I hope Facebook treads carefully,” said Lawrence Coburn, CEO of DoubleDutch, at last Friday’s Mobile Battle. Facebook’s brewing privacy nightmare would suggest the company is marching forward wearing lead boots.

A few key findings:
•    A six in 10 majority (59%) are not comfortable when websites like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft (MSN) use information about a person’s online activity to tailor advertisements or content based on a person’s hobbies or interests. A quarter (25%) is not at all comfortable and 34% are not very comfortable;
•    The remaining 41% who say that are comfortable with Web sites tailoring content is split between 7% who are very comfortable and 34% who are somewhat comfortable.

“Web sites pursuing customized or behavioral marketing maintain that the benefits to online users that advertising revenues make possible — such as free emails or free searches and potential lessening of irrelevant ads — should persuade most online users that this is a good tradeoff,” said Dr. Alan F. Westin, professor of public law and government emeritus at Columbia University, principal of the Privacy Consulting Group, in a release. “Though our question flagged this position, 59% of current online users clearly do not accept it.”

After four privacy/security policies were introduced, U.S. adults did change their opinions, Harris found:
•    By 55% to 45%, a majority of U.S. adults indicates that they would be more comfortable with companies using information about a person’s online activities to provide customized advertising or content;
•    Interestingly, once the privacy/security policies were presented the percentages of those who are very comfortable increases only very slightly to 9% from 7%. The percentage who are somewhat comfortable given the privacy/security policies increases more significantly to 46% from 34%;
•    Similarly, those who are not at all comfortable decline to 19% from 25%, and those who are not very comfortable decline to 26% from 34%.

“The failure of a larger percentage of respondents to express comfort after four privacy policies were specified may have two bases – concerns that web companies would actually follow voluntary guidelines, even if they espoused them, and the absence of any regulatory or enforcement mechanism in the privacy policy steps outlined in the question,” Westin said.

This data is the prize pig of the online advertising industry that gives any company with access to it, an edge over the competition. This is the justification for the billions of dollars tossed at ad serving companies across the Web, because the more relevant the ad, the better the lead and higher the payout to these colossal companies.

This application that Microsoft will be serving up however, has a patent on the targeting technology. Microsoft’s director of privacy strategy Brendon Lynch said that the patent on the applications does not mean plans for a product. Lynch stated that it “will first be reviewed against our privacy standards to ensure that privacy is protected.”

The European Parliament however, held a public seminar on Monday to discuss privacy implications of technology used by Microsoft and its major competitors.

The European Commission is still reviewing the Google acquisition of DoubleClick for the very same concerns.

According to the application “If the offline behavior indicates the user was watching a college football game … if the user goes online during or just after such activity, then an inference could be made that the user is interested in seeing more information about the game as well as being receptive to advertisements selling college-team memorabilia.”

Softness in the economy also will likely drive more money to the Internet, which can be cheaper than other media and has a reach that is easier to measure, which is attractive to advertisers in slower times. Merrill Lynch predicts overall ad spending in the U.S. for 2008 will grow 2.3%, while the portion of that spending on the Web will increase 18%. Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia says it expects the amount spent on Internet advertising to overtake spending on radio in 2008, and spending on magazines in 2010.

Amid this transformation of the ad industry, here are five trends to watch in 2008:

• New structure: The Web has fueled marketers’ frustration with the lack of collaboration inside the ad holding companies that dominate the industry. Specifically, marketers want more cooperation between the executives who create ads for TV and newspapers and those who craft Web ads or perform less glamorous tasks such as researching consumer behavior.
 
Many advertisers complain that ad executives too often push agendas that will most help their own bottom lines and tend to favor certain types of media, such as TV. Advertisers want a “media-agnostic” approach, one that picks whatever medium is best for the ad campaign.

Some bigger marketers have taken matters into their own hands during the past year. Procter & Gamble, Dell and Johnson & Johnson each have tried — working with ad holding companies — to create new types of ad groups that blend different functions. In 2008, pressure from marketers on this issue is likely to intensify, forcing even more change in the way ad firms are structured.

• Screen wars: As advertisers find it harder to reach consumers in a fragmented media world, some are turning more often to the outdoors. Television screens are increasingly popping up in grocery and department-store aisles, elevators and even gas pumps — all blaring clips of TV programs, accompanied by ads. Walt Disney’s ESPN and CBS Corp. each have programming running on 20-inch liquid-crystal displays at pumps at gas stations around the country. Gas Station TV, which operates about 5,000 such screens in 300 cities, offers ads from marketers such as General Motors’ Chevrolet and Sony. Last year, CBS inked a deal to have its programming also air in the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices.
 
• House guest: Over the years, ad makers have tried various methods to learn about consumers, from focus groups to online polls. But many on Madison Avenue are skeptical of these methods, believing consumers don’t always share their true feelings in those types of traditional settings. So a growing number of ad agencies are expected to try a different approach: having researchers spend long periods of time with consumers to find out more about how they live.
 
Some have already tried this. When devising a new ad for J.C. Penney last year, Saatchi & Saatchi sent staffers to hang out with more than 50 women for several days. They helped the women clean their houses, carpool, cook dinner and shop. Rather than pepper them with questions, the agency employees simply observed the women’s behavior and emotions. Their research became the basis of a new ad campaign; the commercials have won praise from Madison Avenue’s creative community.

“If you want to understand how a lion hunts, you don’t go to the zoo — you go to the jungle,” said Sandy Thompson, global head of strategic planning for Saatchi, which is owned by Publicis Groupe.

• Green backlash: Corporate America latched onto environmental marketing last year, as big companies spent millions of ad dollars promoting their products and services as eco-friendly. Some people in the ad business are predicting a backlash this year from consumers who question whether companies are living up to their promises. “Marketers will be more intensely scrutinized for their green efforts — those that don’t hold up will be called out via blogs and elsewhere online, ultimately leading to consumer skepticism,” said Greg Stern, chief executive of the ad firm Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners.
 
• The antisocial movement: Privacy issues, combined with the fact that consumers have only so much free time, could damp the boom in social networking on the Web. “Nobody has 5,000 real friends,” says Tim Hanlon, senior vice president of Denuo Group, a media and advertising consulting firm owned by Publicis. “At the end of the day it just becomes one big cauldron of noise.” For marketers, he says, that will mean the sites will be much more effective as a consumer-research tool than as a venue to peddle products.

Suzanne Vranica is a writer for WSJ.com

Compliments of WSJ.com

Larry Ponemon, founder of privacy and business ethics think tank the Ponemon Institute said to PC World that users only want information shared on their own terms saying “They view social networks as a private organization. It’s groups or people you know who you choose to share information with.”

The report continues with Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse saying that this incident should make users realize that their information will be used by these social network companies for business purposes. “There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, so in a way, perverse as it sounds, this is a good thing because people might examine their actions online and be aware of the abuses that can occur,” he said in PCW.

With transparency, both experts agreed that there would be greater trust from users which will create a higher acceptance rate of marketing and advertising by a company.

Pharmacies and grocery stores have long targeted offers, but there are many new ways marketers can use personal information to tailor advertising messages. They’re able to gather information about personal interests by tracking Internet use and digital media viewing habits, among other things, and then tailor messages accordingly. Consumers benefit from the customization as they receive ads relevant to them instead of those intended for mass consumption that may have no utility for them at all.

The marketing landscape is being transformed through the availability of new technologies. Social networks Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace recently joined the ranks of behavioral marketers (BusinessWeek.com, 11/7/07). Telecommunications giant Verizon Communications (VZ) has unveiled a plan to mine data from its wireless and wire-line customers. And data powerhouse Acxiom (ACXM) recently announced a new service geared toward personalized marketing.

How personal data will be used to tailor communications with consumers in the future is not exactly known, as new technologies rapidly emerge. For marketers and their targets, though, the marketing world will change. Discussions about how to best protect privacy amid this transformation are well under way, with some calling for an overhaul in regulation. But what’s really needed is the better application of existing guidelines, rather than the creation of a new set of rules.

Too Much Protection?

The theme at the recently concluded meeting of the International Data Protection & Privacy Commissioners in Montreal was “Terra Incognita,” a reference to the unknown future ways that technology will collect and use personal data. While much of the attention was on the new ways that governments can collect and use data, some concluded that privacy laws on the collection and use of personal information are outdated and increasingly irrelevant, with greater restrictions needed.

In that vein, a coalition of U.S. privacy organizations recently demanded that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) set up a “do not track” list (BusinessWeek.com, 11/5/07) that would let consumers surf the Web not just anonymously but also shielded from targeted marketing that uses anonymous data to tailor online advertising.

This would take privacy law to a new level, where protection is given not only to private data (names, addresses, account numbers, etc.) but also to anonymous data (e.g., data collected through cookie technology), which would be legally regulated. The complexity and enforcement problems with a “do not track” law are enormous. Advocates liken it to the “do not call” rules that pertain to telemarketers, but only the names are similar. Compiling and applying a list of those who do not want tailored advertising will be a technological nightmare. Compliance, to the extent it can occur at all, will be costly. Ultimately, consumers will suffer through increased costs passed on to them, and opportunities for more useful consumer information will be diminished.

Fair Information Practices

Proponents of such a new Web of regulations are overlooking the existing privacy toolbox, principally the practices that have developed under the umbrella of Fair Information Practices. Informed consumers can, using the tools available right now on their computers and choices companies provide them, control the extent to which they are subject to behavioral marketing.

The FTC explains how Fair Information Practices underlie current privacy laws this way:

“Over the past quarter century, government agencies in the United States, Canada, and Europe have studied the manner in which entities collect and use personal information—their “information practices”—and the safeguards required to assure those practices are fair and provide adequate privacy protection. The result has been a series of reports, guidelines, and model codes that represent widely accepted principles concerning fair information practices.”

While the national frameworks for implementation of the Fair Information Practices differ, with the European Union countries being more prescriptive and the U.S. more self-regulatory, the bedrock element of all is the concept that consumers should be informed of how their personal data may be used so they can make educated choices. In short, transparency is the key. And in the U.S., if companies say one thing in their privacy policies but do another in the collection and use of personal data, the FTC will step in to enforce. Practice is measured against promises.

Competitive Spirit

The five major search engines—Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT), Ask.com (IACI), and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL—were recently lauded by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) for changes in their privacy practices, specifically with respect to how search data (search terms, cookies, and IP addresses) will be handled.

The CDT said the changes show that competition works. The competition was made possible by visibility of the changes in the privacy policies of the various companies, which provide the notice and choices to consumers. Others disagree with the CDT over the extent to which the Googles of the world have gone to protect data. In any event, adherence to Fair Information Practices has allowed the debate by providing notice to consumers and to the world over how data is being handled (and what the choices are for consumers before they use the search engine).

User-Friendly Privacy Practices

An overhaul of the existing privacy framework, including the addition of “do not track” regulations, is not necessary. Fair Information Practices are expected to remain the foundation of privacy law for some time to come. So, with the advent of new technologies to collect personal data and tailor marketing messages, the fundamental issue is how the information about data use (and the attendant choices available) is communicated, not whether technology using personal data to engage in behavioral marketing should be regulated. In short, how clear and useful are privacy policies?

The FTC and the financial services community have been engaged in an exercise this year to standardize and streamline the privacy notices sent to consumers under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) act. I agree with critics who say the notices sent to consumers in the past—often printed in tiny typeface on flimsy paper, and ignored—need a makeover. The strictures proposed in terms of content, format, and presentation have generated criticism for being inflexible and for stifling innovation in communications with consumers. Whether a standard form emerges remains to be seen.

Outside of the GLB realm, no such proposals for standard forms have been made. So there is a real opportunity for companies collecting consumer data for tailored marketing to communicate in new, clearer, and more consumer-friendly ways in order to provide the notice and choice that are the bedrock Fair Information Practices principles. Privacy policies need to be much more user-friendly. Of course, as a legal matter, the fine print needs to be there. But there is no reason the policies cannot be summarized with headlines in plain English, in a graphically attractive way. Just as dense management reports often contain executive summaries, companies should employ consumer summaries that highlight the privacy provisions. Even video can be used to describe the privacy options available to consumers. Verizon recently experimented with such video information.

Matter of Control

A special opportunity exists for companies that provide wired and wireless voice, video, and data services. The breadth and depth of the data such companies handle makes it incumbent upon them to clearly state their collection, storage, security, and sharing practices, and what the consumer options are with respect to how data are used. Likewise, more and clearer information needs to be provided to consumers regarding how they can use tools on their own computers to control the collection of data at its source.

In the new technological era, marketers will be able to provide more relevant (and more useful) information to consumers based on personal information, but that will only work if people have control over what information they are sharing. Privacy policies therefore will take on an increasingly important role, and companies will (and should) be rewarded for innovations in how such policies are communicated. A new “do not track” bureaucracy is not what is needed.

Christopher Wolf is a litigation partner in the Washington (D.C.) office of Proskauer Rose and chairs the firm’s Privacy & Data Security Practice Group. He is the editor and lead author of the Practising Law Institute treatise Proskauer on Privacy: A Guide to Privacy and Data Security Law in the Information Age.

Compliments of BusinessWeek

Concerns are mounting that Google could become as dominant in online display advertising as it is in the £4.5bn European search market, where it controls more than 80 per cent of revenues.

Google will learn at the end of this month whether the commission, which is studying the deal, intends to launch a full three-month inquiry.

In Yahoo!’s first public expression of concern about Doubleclick, Andrew Cecil, public policy head, said: “Combining Google’s search business with Doubleclick’s ad technology will strengthen Google’s dominant position in Europe. The competitive landscape for online advertising will be negatively impacted. The end result will be higher prices for internet publishers and advertisers and less choice for European consumers.”

Yahoo!’s submission to the Commission says that a healthy degree of competition in online display acts as a constraint on Google’s search prices. If search costs too much, advertisers can simply spend more on display.

Owning Doubleclick, however, could give Google the ability to expand its display business much faster than competitors. And internet publishers could be forced to give Google a larger slice of their ad revenues. In the complicated world of online advertising, premium advertising slots on the most popular sites are sold by real people, but most inventory is sold through online auctions.

Advertisers use such auctions, called advertising exchanges or networks, to bid against rivals to place ads on websites. Ad exchanges are growing faster than any other online ad business.

Google has an online auction business, Adsense, which already controls an estimated 25 per cent of the European market. Doubleclick has technology which helps advertisers to manage their campaigns – sending back information on cost and number of people reached.

A Google spokesman said: “We asked the Commission to look at the proposed acquisition. We believe it is good for users and advertisers, and it fosters competition.”

Juliette Garside is a writer for Telegraph.co.uk

Compliments of Telegraph.co.uk