The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has
released a more detailed policy position regarding on-line behavioural advertising. This is a
must-read for companies conducting on-line behavioural advertising
strategies in Canada.
The OPC defines on-line behavioural advertising as the practice
of advertising service providers targeting website visitors with
advertisements that are chosen based on tracking a person's
browsing activity across multiple websites. The OPC provides the
following example: "a user has visited websites about pets in
the past, then ads related to pets might be shown on various web
sites, even sites that are not related to pets (e.g., an online
newspaper)." On-line behavioural advertising differs from
first-party targeted advertising where the organization's
advertising is based solely on the profile of an individual with
whom that organization has a relationship and is not based on
tracking the individual across multiple websites.
