The first ever regulatory affairs director of IAB Australia believes the online advertising industry has a strong opportunity to close potential loopholes around privacy before government intervention.
Samantha Yorke, a former Yahoo! Legal Director, Asia Pacific, said as the online ad space was evolving rapidly, data collection was becoming a concern for consumers.
Her role at IAB will also involve moves to ensure that privacy issues are tackled in advance of any serious breaches by the industry. Currently, the federal Privacy Act doesn't address the issue of using data around consumer interests and behaviours, and Yorke believes IAB members can reach self-regulating agreements on how consumers are protected.
“The information being collected via online behavioural advertising cannot be used to identify an individual,” Yorke told AdNews.
“There are gaps in the Privacy Act and there is an opportunity for the online industry to self-regulate. There is always the risk that the government steps in and regulates.”
Yorke also said as the delivery and appearance of online ads became more sophisticated, consumers would need to be better educated if a content piece was a sponsored search ad, or not. Industry discussions have already commenced about making sponsored ads more transparent.
Yorke said the US and European markets have looked to self-regulate already and placed icons around individual 'ad units', in order to make it clear that the content is an ad placement.
She said that as technology evolved at a rapid rate, and privacy concerns increased with the onset of Big Data, the IAB had to ensure that consumers remained comfortable about digital advertising.
Yorke said she hoped to get agreement from IAB members on the major regulatory issues priorities within her first six months. Areas to be addressed would likely include alcohol advertising, gambling, general standards issues and media convergence.
IAB now has more than 130 members including some of the industry’s largest advertisers, agencies and publishers and an expanded Board including Google and SBS.
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