Survey: consumers familiar with behavioral targeting, don't love it

The consequence were published in a study, "2008 Study: Consumer Attitudes About Behavioral Targeting," that was independently conducted last month by TNS Global on behalf of consumer privacy organisation TRUSTe. About 1,200 people participated.

Seventy-one percent of respondents said they are aware info about their online activity is being collected by third political party for ad purposes. Nevertheless, only 40 percentage said they know the term "behavioral targeting," says the study.

TNS Global found that 57 percentage of the people surveyed said they are not comfortable with advertisers using their browse history to serve ads even when they believe their names and other personal information is not being revealed. Fifty-four percentage said they delete their cooky at least twice every month.

"These statistics indicate a high level of uncomfortableness with the idea of trailing, despite industry reassurances that the info is wholly anonymous," says the study.

Carolyn Hodge, TRUSTe's VP of communicating, said she believes the study marks the first time anybody bothered to ask -- in a scientific, structured manner -- what people think about behavioral targeting for online ad intent.

"First of all TRUSTe is followers this issue from a privateness perspective," said Hodge, noting TRUSTe works with "companies that represent the stallion value chain" including advertisers, ad networks, publishers and portals.

"I think that behavioral targeting is still a jolly small part of the overall advertising being done on the net," said Hodge. "At least, from what we can tell, advertisers would like to be doing more behavioral targeting but they are still hesitant because of consumer issues about privacy."

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they would be volition to fill out an anonymous survey about the merchandise, services and trade name they buy if it would limit, to just those products, services and brands, the online ads they are served. However, 19 percent "decidedly would not," according to the report.

Hodge said the report shows that consumers "obviously want customized experiences and relevant advertising� from brands they trust." However, there will be a lot of mistrust about the behavioral targeting methods unless those in the industry do more to educate Internet users, she said.

Noting that users of Amazon.com seem to have embraced that site's use of behavioral targeting to deliver customized recommendations, Hodge said a solution to the problem is possible.

"Unfortunately, I don�t have the silver bullet for it," she conceded. "But there are some good models out there taking place. It's definitely TRUSTe's position that all the companies benefitting from behavioral targeting need to be working together to make sure consumers feel like they understand more about what's happening."