DAA founding association leaders speak to DAA’S Mobile Choice tools launch

The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) today launched two new mobile tools for consumers – "AppChoices" and the "DAA Consumer Choice Page for Mobile Web." These innovations supplement the self-regulatory organization’s advertising transparency and choice mechanisms already used by millions of consumers for their desktop browsers. This evolution in the DAA's choice platforms adapts consumer-friendly, independently enforceable privacy controls to the fast-growing mobile medium.

With the new tools, U.S. consumers now have a simplified means to control data collection and use across Web sites (in "desktop" and mobile Web) and apps on a particular device. The tools were developed to provide a consistent user experience across these channels, the DAA reports. The enhanced transparency will leverage the DAA’s Icon, and enable consumers to exercise choice with individually-named DAA companies on the Consumer Choice Page for Mobile Web and the new AppChoices app – or they may choose all participating companies at once. Currently the DAA Icon is served globally more than 1 trillion times every month across desktop and mobile platforms.

The two new mobile enhancements will help ensure that users have access to simple control mechanisms for mobile browsers and in-mobile applications, the DAA announced. Starting today, AppChoices is available as a free download from major online mobile app storefronts, Google PlayTM, Apple App StoreSM, and Amazon Store.

"Our new mobile choice tools deliver the same reliable, independently enforced, privacy control experience where consumers and brands engage, both across the desktop Internet and on the go," DAA Executive Director, Lou Mastria, CIPP, CISSP, said. "The DAA’s ubiquitous icon signals a set of safeguards to the consumer, among them easy-to-use choice mechanisms which give consumers control over data collection and use in the evolving world of the mobile Internet and across mobile apps – just as the icon helps deliver access to those same protections on desktops. Today’s announcement reflects the DAA’s continued efforts to deliver consistent, privacy-friendly solutions backed by robust independent accountability."

The DAA also announced that it expects its independent accountability programs – the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) – to commence enforcement under the Mobile Guidance by late summer.

Based on the same self-regulatory principles underlying the DAA’s existing Consumer Choice Page for desktop Web browsers, AppChoices provides an easy-to-use interface to allow users to set their preferences for data collection and use across apps for interest-based advertising and other applicable uses. The DAA Consumer Choice Page for Mobile Web is an updated, mobile-optimised version of the desktop Consumer Choice Page already used by millions of consumers; and which will allow consumers to set their own preferences for data collection and use easily across the mobile sites they visit.

"We believe these new tools for transparency and choice will lead to greater trust and engagement between brands and consumers no matter which screen is being used to interact," DAA General Counsel Stu Ingis said. "According to recent polling, seven in ten consumers want tools available that provide them transparency and choice over data collection wherever and however they access the internet, and nearly as many want to pick and choose which companies bring them relevant offers. The DAA has evolved to help companies meet such consumer preferences – just as consumers are relying more and more on mobile apps and sites. The result will bolster both consumer trust and marketplace growth."

The IAB's Regulatory Affairs Manager, Yves Schwarzbart said; "We welcome these developments in the US to offer users greater transparency and control in a mobile environment. We are talking to the US DAA about adopting this tool for consumers across European markets.”