Children today are growing up in a digital society. They will never know what it was like living in a world without the internet or mobile devices. They are digital savvy and their distinction between offline and online worlds increasingly blurs by the day. But being media savvy is not the same as being...
I’ve banged the drum in previous weeks about the importance of consumer education about behavioural advertising, and the IAB's recent research has highlighted the need for this. Today the IAB has published a guide on behavioural advertising specifically for industry, our first step in helping educate...
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of informing and educating consumers about the internet. This followed a revamp of the IAB’s website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – aimed at helping internet users understand online behavioural advertising, how it works and how to switch it off if they want...
It's official: us Brits love shopping online. According to research by price comparison service, Uswitch, 93% of the UK population now shop on the internet (I think that’s 93% of the 2,500 adults they surveyed!). And, as consumers continue to ‘connect’ so advertisers increasingly look to the internet...
The Government – pioneered by the departing Communications Minister, Lord Carter – today unveiled its final Digital Britain report . There is welcome acknowledgement of the contribution digital advertising – in particular targeted advertising - will make in helping to monetise online content. The Government...
A parliamentary body of MPs and Peers – the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications – is to conduct an inquiry into internet traffic, including behavioural advertising and online privacy. The Group asks whether the Government should intervene over behavioural advertising or whether it should...
Last Friday’s Digital Britain Summit at The British Library was themed as an event to discuss the ‘plumbing’ (ie broadband infrastructure) and ‘poetry’ (ie the content) – this is Lord (Stephen) Carter’s very own analogy. Its importance to the Government was on show for all to witness: four senior government...
Over the last few months I’ve written a number of blogs about the Digital Britain project, the Government’s blueprint for the UK’s digital economy. This kicked off last November with a blog arguing that the internet will help the UK economy out of its current recession, followed in late January with...
With the IAB’s Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising still ‘hot off the press’ (to use an old media term!), Google this week launched its own ‘interest-based advertising’ global product across its AdSense partner sites and YouTube. Google’s new venture meets the core commitments of notice...
Protecting personal data and privacy is one of the biggest challenges of the digital era. And, as we all spend more of our lives online, so it’s importance will continue to grow. People are prepared to share more information about themselves and their experiences then we might dare to do in the offline...
