The First Principle of Fairness in Ad Targeting

BlueKai and Efficient Frontier announced a pilot program that targets ads based on keywords that are inferred from consumer behavior across BlueKai’s network. It seems like a significant competitive development, since advertisers can now simply use their existing Google AdWords lists to program ad buying.

Under the agreement, Efficient Frontier will participate in a beta program where client keyword lists will be submitted to BlueKai and matched against intent data segments. Efficient Frontier will then use this set of intent data to drive targeting for display advertising against the qualified audience. Buying BlueKai Intent™ by keywords will enable search marketers to identify in-market audiences – defined by existing search keyword lists – and reach them outside the walls of search engines with any media partner and at significant scale.

BlueKai has always been a leader in giving consumers a view to their own ad profile, true to what I consider to be the First Principle of Fairness in Ad Targeting: If the advertiser can buy against a characteristic of the profile, then the consumer should be able to see it and delete it. It’s hard to think of a principled reason why you wouldn’t provide this visibility, which makes it surprising that even some of the largest players still fail to do so and the NAI doesn’t require it.

Assuming BlueKai stays true to the Principle, I’m watching to see keywords appear in my own entry in the BlueKai Registry sometime soon.