Yesterday Better Advertising announced that they will allow tracking companies to make their user preference maps visible as part of BA’s enhanced notice and choice experience. Even though it doesn’t look like more than framed versions of existing preference managers, it’s a simple but important step forward for consumers. Anything that makes the user’s own profile more easily accessible is a good thing.
A word of caution: it’s very important to make sure that when consumers are shown their profile, it is complete. Unless the consumer sees all of the targeting parameters that advertisers can see, it won’t be; in fact, it will be misleading. As discussed earlier, for companies like BlueKai, there’s still work to do, particularly as their preference maps grow to include granular information like search query-based parameters. Hopefully this program indicates a serious commitment in that direction.