Dive summary:
- Nearly 70% of respondents said they would prefer some of their online ads be targeted in a poll from Zogby Analytics commissioned by the Digital Advertising Alliance.
- The findings go against previous thoughts that consumers hated targeted ads because of privacy concerns; according to the DAA's managing director, many other polls used emotional words like "tracking" without fully explaining what that meant.
- Respondents were much more concerned with other privacy and safety issues on the Internet; for example the biggest concern was identity theft at 39%, closely followed by viruses and malware at 33%.
From the article:
"The timing of the DAA's poll comes none too soon, a day after Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Edith Ramirez ramped up the agency's call for a universal Do Not Track mechanism like Microsoft's browser, implying that the industry's two-year-old ad choices self-regulatory program was only a partial solution. In Congress, DAA skeptic Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is also planning on a hearing before the end of the month."