AT&T Sends Mixed Message On Behavioral Advertising 27
Ian Lamont writes "An advertising company that runs a 'targeting marketplace' and partner AT&T are playing down the telecommunications giant's use of its services after AT&T's chief privacy officer told a House subcommittee yesterday that the company does not engage in behavioral advertising. The AT&T executive testified (PDF) to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet that AT&T would not use behavioral advertising methods without informed customer consent. However, AudienceScience, a company that records 'billions of behavioral events daily' has apparently worked for AT&T since 2005. After the hearing, AudienceScience removed a client testimonial relating to AT&T from its website, so 'all the appropriate parties [have] consistent messaging,' its CEO said. An AT&T spokesman also said that the testimony was talking about AT&T's role as an ISP, not an advertiser."
800 numbers and LL Bean (Score:5, Interesting)
In the past, L.L. Bean and American Express all experimented with greeting customers by name when they called. They did this by linking the ANI information received on their incoming 1-800-telephonenumber line with a computerized database. People were creeped out to have a person greet them by their name before they'd even said "Hello", and both American Express and L.L. Bean stopped doing this. Affinity marketing campaigns also did this and the FTC regulated this away, partially.
link to ftc pdf, [ftc.gov] see page 42 and other.
What ATT is trying to hide about what they've already done is steps beyond this.
kris