location-based targeting – Media Tech Law

Targeted Election Ads: New Frontier in Political Advertising

Posted March 19, 2015 by Roman Vayner 0

The next U.S. President won’t be sworn in for almost two years, but the jostling and positioning among likely candidates has already begun. When candidates consider how to reach potential voters, an increasingly sophisticated weapon in their arsenal will be targeted advertising to reach voters in-between commercial breaks of their favorite TV shows. These “addressable ads” allow advertisers – in this case political campaigns – to pay content providers, such as satellite networks, to reach specific homes. Addressable ads present a sharp departure from previous eras of political advertising that used a “shotgun approach” to appeal to as many potential voters as possible, regardless of demographics, previous political affiliation, or likelihood of voting.

Satellite television providers DirecTV and DISH Network have already embraced this technology by selling data about subscribers’ individual viewing habits to campaigns. Subscriber data are initially anonymized, but with addresses intact, and then matched to the addresses on voter-registration and canvassing databases. According to a USA Today report, once the targeted households are selected, the satellite provider sends the addressable ads to the home’s digital video recorder (DVR), and the ad airs in the next available commercial slot as part of whatever programming the customer is watching. After the ad plays, the remainder of the user’s TV show continues unaffected until the next ad slot opens.

Please Don’t Take My Privacy (Why Would Anybody Really Want It?)

Posted October 22, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Legal issues with privacy in social media stem from the nature of social media – an inherently communicative and open medium. A cliché is that in social media there is no expectation of privacy because the very idea of privacy is inconsistent with a “social” medium. Scott McNealy from Sun Microsystems reportedly made this point with his famous aphorism of “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

But in evidence law, there’s a rule barring assumption of facts not in evidence. In social media, by analogy: Where was it proven that we cannot find privacy in a new communications medium, even one as public as the internet and social media?

Let’s go back to basic principles. Everyone talks about how privacy has to “adapt” to a new technological paradigm. I agree that technology and custom require adaptation by a legal system steeped in common law principles with foundations from the 13th century. But I do not agree that the legal system isn’t up to the task.

All you really need to do is take a wider look at the law.

Privacy writers talk about the law of appropriation in privacy. The law of appropriation varies from state to state, though it is a fairly established aspect of privacy law.

Privacy: Consent to Collecting Personal Information

Posted April 4, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Gonzalo Mon writes in Mashable that “Although various bills pending in Congress would require companies to get consent before collecting certain types of information, outside of COPPA, getting consent is not a uniformly applicable legal requirement yet. Nevertheless, there are some types of information (such as location-based data) for which getting consent may be a good idea. Moreover, it may be advisable to get consent at the point of collection when sensitive personal data is in play.”

First, what current requirements – laws, agency regulations and quasi-laws – require obtaining consent, even if not “uniformly applicable”?

1. Government Enforcement. The Federal Trade Commission’s November 2011 consent decree with Facebook user express consent to sharing of nonpublic user information that “materially exceeds” user’s privacy settings. The FTC was acting under its authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act against an “unfair and deceptive trade practice”, an authority the FTC has liberally used in enforcement actions involving not just claimed breaches of privacy policies but also data security cases involving managing of personal data without providing adequate security.

2. User Expectations Established by Actual Practice. The mobile space offers some of the most progressive (and aggressive) examples of privacy rights seemingly established by practice rather than stated policy. For example, on the PrivacyChoice blog, the CEO of PlaceIQ explained that “Apple and Android have already established user expectations about [obtaining] consent. Location-based services in the operating system provide very precise location information, but only through a user-consent framework built-in to the OS. This creates a baseline user expectation about consent for precise location targeting.” (emphasis added)

MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC