On December 6, 2011, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of
Canada (OPC) released its Guidelines on Privacy and Online
Behavioural Advertising. These Guidelines outline best practices
relating to online advertising in order to assist advertisers,
websites, browser developers and other organizations involved in
online behavioural advertising in complying with Canada's
federal private-sector privacy statute, the Personal
Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
Below is a brief background on behavioural advertising, the steps
previously taken by the OPC in this regard, and an outline of the
new Guidelines.
BACKGROUND
What is Behavioural Advertising?
Behavioural advertising is a form of advertising or marketing
that targets specific consumers based upon their behaviours and
preferences. Online, behavioural advertising is facilitated by
numerous tracking tools that permit organizations to collect
consumer data and link such data to