Accountability Program Announces Initial Compliance Agreements

This article first appeared in Cyberlaw Currents, a Frankfurt Kurnit legal blog.

The Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) has announced the first six compliance agreements with online behavioral marketers under its Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program's (Program) self-regulatory regime.

Beginning in August, the Program began testing the functionality, usability, and duration of consumer-choice mechanisms offered by a number of companies. As a result of that testing, self-regulatory inquiries were opened with Forbes Media Extension (FMX), Martini Media, PredictAd, QuinStreet, Reedge and Veruta. The cases primarily concerned the duration of end users' opt-out options. For example, FMX's opt-out cookie was set to expire in less than six months from the date of the request, rather than the industry standard five-year time frame. Other cases involved the accessibility of the opt-out mechanism. QuinStreet's and Veruta's (MyBuys) opt-out