Earlier this month the ASA published its half-year report into compliance with the new
Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) rules. By way of background,
the rules apply to advertisers that collect and use web viewing
behavioural data in order to deliver online ads that are more
likely to be of interest to a consumer. The rules require
advertisers to provide a notification to consumers that OBA is
being used, as well as an opt-out mechanism on both their own
websites and on the OBA ad itself (CAP Code Appendix 3, Rule
31.1.1) in order to provide consumers with increased transparency
and control over the collection and use of their web viewing
data.
The ASA found that the complaint numbers from users was very low
– with only 77 complaints between February and June 2013. The
report states that the "overwhelming majority of complaints
focused on problems that consumers had experienced in trying to
opt-out of receiving OBA" and that of 380 advertisers engaged
in OBA
