CASIE Goals for Privacy for Marketing on Interactive Media The emergence of interactive media presents unprecedented marketing opportunities for marketers and commensurate benefits to consumers. Key to this is the ability of interactive media to accept and respond to input from the consumer. For this reason, it is important that marketers be guided in their interactive efforts by an appropriate concern for consumer privacy. With that in mind, the Coalition for Advertising Supported Information and Entertainment (CASIE) has formulated a statement of Goals for Privacy on interactive Media. CASIE hopes that by announcing these goals at this time, it will spark a discussion among all members of the interactive community to determine appropriate and effective ways to protect the privacy of consumers. Of course, interactive media are still at an embryonic stage of development. Narrow and precise rules therefore may be inappropriate and might serve to stifle the development of the media. In particular, it is important to remember that the new media and the interactive communications it allows, are the first truly global marketplace where the costs of entry are within reach of many marketers that in the past could not have afforded to reach their potential customer through the use of traditional mass media. Over-regulation within the United States, therefore, might put domestic marketers at a disadvantage in this new world marketplace. Thus, while respect for privacy is important to all concerned, patience and restraint in regulation is also important to allow the marketplace to evolve and react. As this interactive marketplace grows, and the discussion about consumer privacy proceeds, these goals may serve as a framework for further development of more specific policies. CASIE GOALS FOR PRIVACY FOR MARKETING 1. We believe it is important to educate consumers about how they can use interactive technology to save time and customize product and service information to meet their individual needs. By choosing to share pertinent data about themselves, consumers can be provided the product information most relevant to them and can help marketers service them more economically and effectively. 2. We believe any interactive electronic communication from a marketer ought to disclose the marketer's identity. 3. We believe that marketers need to respect privacy in the use of "personal information" about individual consumers collected via interactive technology. "Personal information" is data not otherwise available via public sources. In our view, personal information ought to be used by a marketer to determine how it can effectively respond to a consumer's needs. 4. We believe that if the marketer seeks personal information via interactive electronic communication, it ought to inform the consumer whether the information will be shared with others. We also believe that before a marketer shares such personal information with others, the consumer ought to be offered an option to request that personal information not be shared. Upon receiving such a request, the marketer ought to keep such personal information confidential and not share it. 5. We believe consumers ought to have the ability to obtain a summary of what personal information about them is on record with a marketer that has solicited them via interactive electronic communication. In addition, a consumer ought to be offered the opportunity to correct personal information, request that such information be removed from the marketer's database (unless the marketer needs to retain it for generally accepted and customary accounting and business purposes), or request that the marketer no longer solicit the consumer. |