The digital ad business last month took a beating from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (R-W.Va.) during the Commerce committee’s eighth privacy hearing in the past 18 months. Rockefeller, a big proponent of Do Not Track legislation and disbeliever in self-regulation, harangued marketers and browser companies for having failed so far to come to a consensus on voluntary Do Not Track standards. A direct target of Rockefeller’s tirade was the Digital Advertising Alliance, a coalition of media and marketing trade groups including the 4A’s, IAB and DMA. The DAA has spent the past two years touting the benefits of an ad-choices program that lets consumers opt out of targeted ads. But clearly its efforts haven’t resonated with lawmakers. As the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) meets in Sunnyvale, Calif., this week to further hash out these issues, DAA managing director Lou Mastria offers his take on whether DAA can help the industry achieve consensus on DNT.
