Technology & Innovation — April 5, 2011

User Control: Behavioral Advertising

For the first time, Australians can turn off behavioural advertising used on the websites of most of the country’s major online advertisers.

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“Online advertising is here to stay – and wouldn’t you rather see advertisements relevant to you rather than being bombarded with the sometimes wasteful and irrelevant scatter gun approach we see in traditional media?” So says Paul Fisher, spokesperson for the Australian Digital Advertising Alliance (ADAA), as his country launches a new website that gives web users the choice about the extent to which their online behaviour is categorised for marketing purposes. “This new site is not just about telling people how to turn behavioural advertising off. We also want to educate people about the benefits behavioural advertising can provide.”

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