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The introduction of new business models can be controversial, but may be very important in the delivery of new access networks. Regulation can have a role, for example in helping to increase consumer confidence in new services. One example is improving consumers’ perception of behavioural advertising. We are interested in views on where else Ofcom can assist in new commercial developments.

Comments

Ofcom should not be promoting 'behavioural advertising'.

Improving the perception of behavioural advertising is a matter for the private investors who bought into it, not a matter for tax payers money.

If behavioural advertising companies cannot make their product legal and appealing, they should not be in business, and they should not be given Government support to rescue their poor public image and failed business models.

If unencrypted data cannot be sent or received in the UK with assured privacy/security/data integrity and respect for copyright... and regulators won't act... the only alternative is mass encryption.

"Regulation can have a role, for example in helping to increase consumer confidence in new services."

What if the consumers' lack of confidence is justified? Should a regulator still help the companies they are supposed to regulate in misleading customers?

If BT Profile my Internet Communications "again" as they did in 2006 & 2007 & whilst making other Mods & other nefarious reasons; I for one will not be needing your Fibre network, because I will have shaken the dust off my feet & left the WWW.

I fail to see how it is in Ofcom's remit to improve consumers' perception of behavioural advertising.

Perhaps Ofcom should concentrate on protecting the users of the Internet, rather than assist commercial interests to trample over consumer's privacy?

I fail to see how it is in ofcom's remit to 'improve consumers' perception of behavioural advertising'.

Perhaps ofcom would be better served ensuring that Internet users are protected from commercial interests, rather than working with said interests to erode consumer privacy?

I do not believe that it should be Ofcom's role to assist in commercial developments. If you champion one such, in a field where there are others, then the providers of those less-favoured developments will be entitled to cry 'foul' when they feel they are suffering at the hands of what should be an impartial regulator.

In the specific matter of behavioural advertising, your role, if any at all is appropriate, is to ensure that consumers have an *accurate* perception of this technique.

This will require much more than the uncritical repetition of the PR-speak of companies like Phorm which has, surprisingly, been emanating from so many government bodies lately. Bodies who really ought to be looking in much more depth into what it is that they are being asked to endorse.

My personal view, though I know it is one widely shared by others who have looked at this issue in depth - including the US Congress - is that the intrusion upon internet traffic required by current behavioural advertising methods is out of all proportion to the benefits being proffered, and that no possible justification exists for a technique involving such intrusion.

And this is quite apart from any questions of the legality of such systems, where there are powerful arguments that RIPA, the DPA, and other laws would be broken by them. But this alone, if commercial neutrality is not to be Ofcom's watchword, should give you greater pause before endorsing such methodologies.

Why should we need to be monitored whilst browsing the internet for commercial gain?
If ISp's need money then they should consider increasing their prices accordingly.

As far as I am concerned it is not OFCOM's role to promote or market advertising services, such as Phorm, whether controversial or otherwise.

Regulation does have a role. Unfortunately, current regulations regarding interception of communications seem to be being broken on a large scale. The government, through the ICO and BERR, and the police prefer to ignore these breaches of EU legislation.

We do not need our 'perception of behavioural advertising improved', we need our right to privacy upheld.

To stay ahead of foreign competition and retain advertising revenues in the UK rather than passing them to overseas companies, ISPs need to be able to monetise their broadband services better.
The UK has a chance to leap ahead by promoting services such as Phorm's, it is important that regulators such as Ofcom aid wherever possible.

I am most distressed to find any mention of behavioural advertising on a consultation document about improving internet services. If there is one thing which will kill off innovation and increase the cost of bandwidth it is any form of behavioural targeted advertising being added to the system. Behavioural advertisements are a two way system on top of 'normal' usage - a waste of power and resources.

I do not do any business with anyone who provides my 'behaviour' to any advertiser, not even members within the same group of companies. Even businesses who contact me directly to ask if I wound like to purchase their services again are LESS likely to get my business in the future. If I was happy with their service, surely I would still be using it and reminding me why I am not is not to their advantage.

An internet connection is a service. When I buy that service, that is the only service I want. I do not want to be offered other services. I do not want to have bundled with the service other services which I do not need. I do not want to buy a service and then half way through the service contract discover that it has been 'enhanced' with the addition of a service which becomes a shadow trying to offer me even more services and being a constant reminder that I have not yet taken those services.

I want to use an internet service in private - for personal and e-commerce uses. Without any interference from anyone. Not even the service provider.

The only way you will improve consumers' perception of behavioural targeted advertising is to ban it from any communication system used within the UK and the networks which connect UK communications to the rest of the world.

When exactly did you stop even pretending to represent the interests of consumers?

It is no part of Ofcom's role to spend taxpayers money promoting commercial products such as behavioural targetted advertising or "improving consumer's perception". Ofcom's role is to protect the citizen's privacy, and regulate organizations who handle the citizen's data, whether private or governmental, and already Ofcom has shown a distressing inability to demonstrate impartiality and thoroughness in investigating the illegalities and intrusion associated with various models of behavioural targetted advertising where it uses illegal interception of internet traffic. I am appalled personally to see that Ofcom is even considering seeing it's role as improving consumer perceptions of behavioural targetted advertising. This suggestion reduces my confidence in Ofcom itself, as well as in behavioural targetted advertising based on Deep Packet Inspection, precisely because Ofcom has not demonstrated a willingness to protect my privacy in respect of this technology.

OFCOM should give no succour to those who would engage in consumer surveillance for the purpose of behavioural advertising.

OFCOM's role should be to protect both content providers and the public at large from this parasitic and repellent practice.

i think that it makes sense to have new revenue models to partially subsidise cost of new network. behavioural advertising seems like a good idea if it reduces the amount of irrelevant junk i receive but it would be better if it is delivered to me with me retaining a degree of privacy as a user...

I am somewhat dismayed that OFCOM are even entertaining the idea of promoting commercial services such as behavioural advertising to the public.

Present incarnations of the system seem to assume that any content published on the web is fair game for them to profile, and hence extract value from. I operate a small website, I ask no reward for the time I invest in providing (I hope) entertainment for my small audience - but I object to others exploiting my work for commercial gain. If a user who's browsing is being profiled was to do so, my content would help build a profile of that user in order to better target adverts. As far as I can see, this is a breach of RIPA, as interception of communication requires permission of both parties, and I've never given mine or implied it. Furthermore, as far as I can see, it is a clear breach of my copyright that my work is being exploited for commercial gain by others. I do not see why I should be obliged to modify my website in any manner to re-assert my rights, and BT and Phorm have ignored my enquiries as to how I can be sure that they won't infringe my rights.

If behavioural advertising can be made to offer the public something in a way that protects the rights of website owners, then OFCOM should simply be mandating that ISPs are advertising their products in a fair and honest manner.

The public will then decide. "up to xxMb" advertising should be abolished, with the typical throughput replacing this figure. Any download caps, or fair use policies, or peak time restrictions should be clearly published. If the ISPs can then offer a working legal behavioural advertising sponsored product that gives a faster connection/higher cap/lower monthly cost, then some consumers will choose it.

The reason consumer perception is so dead set against such targeted advertisements is in no small part due to the manner in which BT and Phorm have shown complete disregard for the law.

There are already sites carrying behavioral advertising and other web pages providing search facilities populated from other Google search strings.

Unfortunately the results are so completely dire that I now routinely avoid them

Behavioural advertising is awful: It makes the weirdest associations between goods advertised and what I am interested in finding.

Sorry, but junk is still junk, irrespective of whether it relevant or irrelevant and an organisation that wants my business will need to start demonstrating its commitment to its (potential) customers on day one.

Contextual advertising is actually quite good for that: I simply avoid most companies using it.

Ofcom’s focus is on furthering the interests of consumers and citizens..... behavioural advertising is only in the interests of the advertisers and suppliers of those systems NOT in the interests of consumers (why "consumers and citizens" by the way?) You cannot have contextual advertising without profiling the user and that, by definition, means spying on their internet usage. It has already been proved that you do not have to capture personal id to be able to identify the individual from their profile. This is a very threatening technology. I suspect Ofcom are in favour since they are, of course, an arm of government and the government, of course, does actually want to watch what you do online. The thought police are already here.

If it means a 2 tier system of broadband provision ie. one with targeted ads and one without then I don't see a problem. As long as the customer has a clear choice at point of sale then it's down to personal preference which road they go down.
Even scope for cheaper broadband from some enterprising ISPs - pay less for the product if you endure targeted ads as opposed to the random stuff we all have to wade through anyway.
Customers already have a choice which ISP and there's nothing to say this will not continue.

"One example is improving consumers’ perception of behavioural advertising"

Consumers perception of behavioural advertising doesn't require improving. Consumers currently understand this practice fully and do not like nor want it.

OFCOM should be listening to consumers and acting to regulate against ISP level behavioural targeting.

have i missed something?

i thought OFCOM was a regulator upholding my rights and ensuring ISP's and telecoms providers played by the rules and regulations!!

now OFCOM are a PR agency for failing ISP's who want to exploit their customers by invading their privacy, building comprehensive and detailed profiles of them so we get "targeted adverts" based on our PRIVATE browsing history,

but thats ok, phorm and BT say they can't link a user to the unique ID, they do not keep URL's (shame phorms website says they do) and that they won't advertise vaious categories such as adult, race, guns etc, (shame the data is still collected and in your profile, just phorm at the moment say the keywords are banned but could change their mind anytime and activate those channels)

ofcom, what you need to do is prevent ISP's from oofering services at un-economic prices then looking for spyware (sorry behavioural advertising) revenues to bail them out

how many smaller ISP's who charge realistic prices are looking at these product which many surveys say users do not want (none i am aware of)

why are you not enquiring why users will not be able to break contracts with BT, VM nd TT due to material change (unfair changes to privacy clauses) when/ if this is implemented

why are you not asking why even if opted out traffic is still intercepted / profiled

these are fair more inportant than trying to champion these products to consumer, if you do that then any impartiality you may have will be lost

and how long before FOI request start to show entanglement of OFCOM with these companies

I seem to recall that there is still some question into the legality of ISP based behavioural advertising systems in the US, and if I again recall correctly all US based ISP’s have stopped using, testing or planning to use such systems. So it was with some astonishment that I read that OFCOM was actively promoting ISP based behavioural advertising, I would have hoped that you were spending my and other taxpayers money on protecting us from this intrusive, unwanted and parasitic technology.

If ISP’s need extra funding to expand and improve the existing network infrastructure then the answer is simple, charge their customers more for the service. If any company sells a product for less than it costs to produce then they deserve to go bust. I pay BT for a connection to the internet, no more and no less, I don’t want it enhanced, altered, intercepted, profiled, edited, rerouted or anything else. And I like many other are willing to pay extra to make sure that happens.

I would suggest that you spend the public money given to you to ensure that ISP’s in this country respect the privacy and rights of their customers under existing legislation not help them to erode them even more. My perception of behavioural advertising does not need changing, what does need changing is the law to make it illegal and OFCOM’s funding from public funds if they are going to use the money to promote private companies.

I don't want "behavioural advertising".

I want fast, reliable, confidential internet access without spyware/adware from companies such as Phorm or NebuAd.

It is completely out-of-order for Ofcom to even consider helping the introduction of these kind of spyware systems!

OFCOM should be protecting broadband subscribers rather than promoting the interests of spyware companies. One has to wonder whether, in the same way senior BT employees obtained posts with Phorm, a similar opprtunity has been offered to "regulators". There seems no other explanation for even contemplating the use of OFCOM to "increase consumer confidence" in being spied upon by their ISPs in concert with dubious commercial companies who have even been stymied in the home of free enterprise, the USA.

I think there's a huge amount of scaremongering that's been created by a couple of IT guys who have almost created some sort of mob rule hysteria over at The Register. Nobody has actually discovered ANY private information from behavioural advertising systems ( and I'm sure these IT guys have been trying their hardest to prove their invalid point)
As a country we need to move forward- we need super fast broadband, but nobody wants to pay for it. If behavioural advertising is the way to do this, then please please ignore The Guardian/dailly Mail scare stories and bring it on.

@Freddi

Unfortunately I may be able to confirm a couple of possible "nasties", but the police are "not" investigating either BTs or Phorms activities over the past 2 years???

"As a country we need to move forward- we need super fast broadband"

Agreed.

"but nobody wants to pay for it."

What you mean is that YOU do not want to pay for it.

"If behavioural advertising is the way to do this, then please please ignore The Guardian/dailly Mail scare stories and bring it on"

Again, what you mean is that you want everyone to be subjected to behavioural monitoring and you want all objections discounted because this will serve to subsidise your wish to obtain this product without paying for it.