Following the US advertising industry’s efforts to introduce a privacy icon to notify web-users that they are viewing advertisements placed using behavioural targetting techniques, there are calls for the UK industry to follow suit.
New Media Age reports that, in the USA, there are plans for the privacy icon to become as familiar as widely recognised symbols used both on and off-line for recycling and other high-profile campaigns, going on to suggest that UK’s online advertising community could benefit by coming together under a similar scheme.
Beyond the UK, last week’s Data Protection Day across the whole of Europe served to highlight the lack of awareness around the sharing of personal data across the web. This extends to the use of that data for behavioural targetting aimed at serving up advertisements based upon individual’s online activities.
Protecting consumers is central to the plans of the EU Commission as it works with social networks and other key online players in the build up to Safer Internet Day on 9th February 2010.
It will be interesting to see the whether the ‘privacy icon’ approach, which is gaining momentum in the USA, gets a mention on the day.
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