US Consumers are not "Opting Out"

Both in the US and Europe, the internet marketing industry's increasing moves towards behaviourally targeted advertising have got the regulators jumpy, though it is still unclear how that will actually manifest itself.  In Europe, the practical implementation of the new privacy directive, which requires consumers to give permission for cookies to be used to facilitate targeted advertising, appears to be in some disarray.

In the US, advertising organisations decided to get a bit of a head start over the regulators to try to prove that the industry could self-regulate, and that consumers were not as terrified about targeted ads as regulators might fear.

The major element of the campaign is the "Ad Option" icon that now appears on some ads, which if clicked leads consumers to information about behavioural advertising, what it means for them, and how they can opt out.  

Recent figures released appear to show that this icon is getting a very low click rate, something in the region of between 0.002% and 0.005%, and of those who do go and read the information, just 10% actually then opt out of the ads.  

Of course, this cannot be relied on as firm evidence that consumers do not care about their behaviour being tracked.  Regular online ads rarely get a clickthrough above 1% anyway, so it is unlikely that most of the online audience paid much attention to the ads and their little icon anyway.  Most ads do not actually have it anyway, with advertisers taking a more wait-and-see approach, although more are apparently signing up according to the US Digital Advertising Alliance.

Either way, it is unlikely this evidence will stop the US regulators wanting to be seen to come down heavily on any perceived invasion of "consumer privacy".