Market Object Blog - Advertising, Branding, Web Development, SEO and Web Analytics in Ottawa

Canada's Privacy Commissioner Investigating Facebook

A formal complaint against Facebook has been filed by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) to Canada's Privacy Commissioner. The complaint was filed on Friday, and an investigation is now underway.

Prepared by law interns, the complaint details 22 separate violations by the Palo Alto, California company, with the practice of collecting personal information in initiating downloads of application being the most notable. PIPEDA, Canada's Privacy Act, states that companies should not collect more information than is necessary to provide the product or service to the end user.

Facebook has already responded by claiming that the complaint contains "factual errors", most notably that Facebook users willingly share their personal information.

My take - When you choose to download an application, you are informed that your personal information will be shared, and you have the option to not download the application. No one is forcing anyone to share the personal information. The applications do not cost the end-user any money, but the personal information is certainly valuable. Personal information has long been a currency on the internet. At least Facebook comes about it honestly. As long as measures are in place to safegaurd this information, I don't see a violation here. But that is a critical question that needs to be addressed.

I pulled this exerpt from Facebook's Terms and Conditions:

"The Facebook Platform does not give Developers access to your e-mail address, personal website, instant messenger ID, telephone number or street address ("Contact Information"). Facebook will only disclose your Contact Information to third parties in accordance with the Facebook Privacy Policy."

Here is how the Privacy Policy addresses this:

"We let you choose to share information with marketers or electronic commerce providers through sponsored groups or other on-site offers." ..."We may offer stores or provide services jointly with other companies on Facebook. You can tell when another company is involved in any store or service provided on Facebook, and we may share customer information with that company in connection with your use of that store or service."

My biggest concern here is how these third parties are using this personal information. As a user downloading an application, you are not made aware of these third party policies. Here is where I believe Facebook may have a problem, and I'm honestly not sure if they can be indemnified should one or more of the application developers illegally share personal information.

Microsoft/Yahoo - Why It's Important

Many of you may be wondering why so much attention is being paid to the Microsoft proposals to acquire or partner with Yahoo. From marketer's perspective, this is will be looked back on as a very important time in the history of search. Google currently controls this space, and with Yahoo losing more and more market share, there is less and less competition. Google is verging on a monopoly.

Data released last week by comScore shows that together, Microsoft and Yahoo would control less than 30% of the search market, compared to Google's 61.6% share.

Many of us are in the odd position of actually rooting for Microsoft, especially now that Google has indicated that they may be interested in a transaction of their own with Yahoo. The more competition Google has, the more competitive they must be. This would help ensure that the search space remains democratic and fair to marketers, search firms and entrepreneurs. Considering the dominant role search plays in consumers' purchasing decisions, I'd say this is one of those watershed moments for the industry.

Microsoft and Yahoo Talking Again

Microsoft and Yahoo have renewed acquisition negotiations. The two parties returned to the table on Sunday. Earlier this month, Microsoft withdrew its bid to acquire Yahoo for over $46B.  This time around, sources close to the negotiations are saying that the talk is centered around a merger model. However, there is speculation that this is just to appease Yahoo investors, and that a full takeover bid may re-surface in the near future.

Two Banners are Better than One

With banner advertising, I always recommend doing a tandem ad placement. Banner advertising is best when it is displayed as a combination of two or more ads, for example, a skyscraper or a leader board and a box ad with the message.  Of course, this does depend on your ad budget.

The consistency of the message is of utmost importance when placing tandem banners. Best practices dictate that you should actually have the same creative running through the different banner types.

If your ad budget is not condusive to purchasing multiple ad banner units, remember that leaderboards are often the most overlooked, and therefore you should be looking at box ad units or skyscraper for your single unit insertions.

Consumers to Google: Stay Away from Yahoo!

Consumer groups said they would object to a Google-Yahoo deal, saying it would put too much of the online ad business under the control of one company. "You can't allow Google to operate a portion of its leading competitor out of its back pocket," Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy told the AP.
- Mercury News

Google's Hat in the Ring for Yahoo?

Google executives met with shareholders and reporters yesterday and answered questions about Microsoft's abandoned bid for Yahoo - and the possibility that Yahoo would outsource some of its search advertising to Google. According to a Mercury News report, co-founder Sergey Brin responded directly to Microsoft's criticism of Google working with Yahoo: "They were under hostile attack and we wanted to make sure they had as many options as possible."
- Mercury News

Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid

Microsoft Corp.'s pursuit of Yahoo Inc. ended abruptly Saturday when the world's largest software maker withdrew a sweetened $46 billion offer and said it would not make a hostile bid for the Internet company.

Microsoft said the breakdown came despite having raised the bid to $33 a share, or $5 billion above what it said was the current value of the offer and a 70% premium compared to its original offer.

Tip: Advertising on Social Networks

Social networks will allow you to target a specific demographic for ad serving. If you are running a campaign to target women aged 18-35 with a post-secondary education, you must make sure that the network you are advertising with will only serve your ad this group. Don't let the social networks fool you into thinking that anything is possible either. There are almost always limitations on their targeting capabilities. Make sure to clarify what those are before signing an insertion order.

Banner Critics Have Nothing to Offer

We have been hearing for years that banner advertising just does not work as a lead generation tactic. While it may be true that banners are best used for branding campaigns, it is simply not true banners can not be effective for driving traffic to your site.

The common mistake advertisers make is not including an offer in their banner advertising which would compel a response. While it may seem obvious, I would say that more than half of the banners I see on social networks and advertising portals do not provide a click incentive. This has a major impact on click and conversion rates.

Because banners are often background window dressing, it is difficult enough to illicit any sort of response, nevermind record an actual impression (not to be confused by an impression you pay for - an actual impression is someone actually looking at your ad). Give yourself a fighting chance by offering something juicy in your banner ads.

Social Media Ads - It's Just a Matter of Time

Social media advertising has been criticized for its low click through rates. When compared to the high number of page views these site receive, the low click through rates are magnified even more. But social media advertising is a completely different animal than the websites that set the standards for acceptable click rate to pageview ratios.

The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 with 70 percent coming from MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com. Add in YouTube and Flickr and you get another 60 million totaling an estimated 215 million humans viewing social media monthly.

Eventually, advertisers will see that social media is a great way to reach mass audiences.  Who cares what the clickthrough rate is for Facebook? What does it matter that MySpace doesn't send through traffic in spades? Would you not take advantage of the online audience offered by Youtube just because click rates are so significantly dwarfed by the number of pageviews it receives?  All these sites reach huge audiences that big brands like Ford and Coca-Cola see major value in.

The social media audience is made up of the that "sweet spot" youth demographic who spend big money online. They are what ad agencies like Market Object call a "high value audience." Social media advertising will take off because I doubt that advertisers will suddenly forget that what they value most is critical mass.