Online search engine Yahoo is today expected to launch
tools to make it easier for advertisers to target consumers based
on their online behaviour.
Reports in the
Washington Post quoted senior Yahoo officials as saying the new
services include serving graphical adverts to users who have
searched for particular terms in Yahoo's search engine. They could
then customise the offers in adverts based on what websites a
consumer has visited and what they have done on those sites.
From next month, marketers will be able to buy text
advertisements that appear next to search results. The ads served
will be based on users' activities at the time of day, or other
factors such as age and gender, the paper said.
The behaviour profiling technology has been highly controversial
in the UK. BT was strongly criticised when it conducted secret
trials of
similar technology from Phorm, an AIM-listed software
house.
Eventually the Department for Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform issued
guidelines for using the technology. One was that users had to
give their informed consent to receiving such targeted
advertisments.
BT's decision to go ahead with a commercial launch of the
technology, known as Webwise, is still pending.
Behaviour profiling has also been criticised in the US as a
potential invasion of privacy. The Federal Trade Commission was
subsequently forced into producing guidelines for marketers who
want to use it.
Yahoo, the leading provider of online display advertising, has
been talking to Microsoft, Google and AOL about mergers or
partnership deals for more than a year, without result.
Yahoo executives are expected to reveal the details of the tools
at a conference in Orlando, Florida later today, the paper
said.