Report: The National Advertising Initiative – Failing at Consumer Protection and at Self-Regulation

The National Advertising Initiative: Beyond Cookies – Tracking Technologies are not Always Exposed or Visible to Consumers

A traditional cookie as defined by the NAI is not the only persistent identifier and tracker available to network advertisers and marketers anymore. New technologies and techniques have become routine business practice since the original NAI was written, particularly in the area of persistent identifiers and tracking technologies. A rich array of browser cache cookies, Flash cookies, and other non-NAI-covered tracking techniques not only exist, but are in use today.

The National Advertising Initiative: Notice – Still Not Clear or Conspicuous

One of the issues raised in the FTC reports to Congress about online behavioral profiling was notice. The FTC and the NAI promised “robust” enforcement of notice. Unfortunately, because the foundational understandings of the NAI are out of date, the NAI ideas of notice that flow from those understandings are also out of date.

The National Advertising Initiative: TRUSTe’s Systematic March From NAI Transparency

TRUSTe began reporting on NAI complaints in March 2002. It used its Watchdog Reports to do this. In the intervening years, TRUSTe public reports regarding the NAI reveal a troubling, systematic reduction of transparency regarding the NAI. (See Appendix B for a complete listing of all TRUSTe NAI complaints.)

The National Advertising Initiative: Oversight of NAI is a Failure

Oversight of the NAI has been neglected. As a result, there are many things the public simply does not know about the program, in particular, its effectiveness. To date, the public does not know how many consumers participate in the program. The public does not have numbers comparing consumers who have visited opt-out pages with consumers who have successfully opted out. How many consumers actually have opt-out cookies, and for how long? Where are the reports on whether or not it is effective for those who do opt-out? Are NAI members actually complying with the obligations?