You’d be forgiven for wondering what exactly is going on in the world of behavioural targeting. In the last couple of weeks a lot has been happening.

For one, American Airlines have finally decided to target me on their homepage – a minor victory and still simple personalization, but still a step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned as a frequent visitor and traveller I appreciate not having to hunt out offers and destinations relevant to me.

On the other hand, I question whether American will be able to follow the same route in Germany where where FEDMA has issued new rules to govern the trade in personal data.  Unfortunately it’s far from clear exactly what effect this will have on targeted communications on the web.  It still feels like single site product promotion and customization is fine, but on line ads from other sites based on personal data would “seem” to be outside these guidelines – but that’s just my opinion.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, Phorm have had a discouraging time with BT announcing they have no plans to implement the cross-site behavioural targeting system.  Perhaps this is unsurprising as there’s still the European legal action waiting based on the unannounced trials of the system a couple of years ago, which are claimed to have invaded unsuspecting customers privacy.  Phorm claim other ISPs are still interested and that critics of their system are ’serial agitators’, well I guess that must include me, because their system seems decidedly intrusive from where I’m standing.

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