IPTV industry must also face up to scrutiny around behavioural advertising

The online advertising industry has launched a set of guidelines for a genre of web adverts that have been causing controversy.

The code of practice has been drawn up by the Internet Advertising Bureau and focuses on the emergence of behavioural advertising, a form of targeting consumers based on people’s browsing activity.

The TV industry should be listening closely to this news. It’s an issue that could soon spill into the TV world as service providers start to converge traditional broadcast channels with content from the web.

Telcos, other service providers and advertisers themselves have been talking about the convergence of the TV & the web for some time. In many ways, it’s a case of when, and not if, it will happen. Convergence will revolutionise the way people watch and use the TV, but it will also mean that broadcasters have to be much more targeted in their advertising. However, there’s a fine line to tread between offering consumers good, targeted services based on viewing preferences and what could be perceived as ‘snooping’. Whatever the outcome of this discussion, eventually the TV industry will have to face up to these issues and adopt some sort of guidelines or best practice of its own.

If you have any thoughts of your own on this – I’d be glad to hear more about them.