text:
Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising
- Verity Nichols
- 3 years ago
- Views:
1 Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising Avi Goldfarb and Catherine E. Tucker May 4, 2010 Abstract Advertisers use online customer data to target their marketing appeals. This has heightened consumers privacy concerns, leading governments to pass laws designed to protect consumer privacy by restricting the use of data and by restricting online tracking techniques used by websites. We use the responses of 3.3 million survey-takers who had been randomly exposed to 9,596 online display (banner) advertising campaigns to explore how strong privacy regulation in the European Union has influenced advertising effectiveness. We find that display advertising became far less effective at changing stated purchase intent after the laws were enacted relative to other countries. The loss in effectiveness was more pronounced for websites that had general content (such as news sites), where non-data-driven targeting is particularly hard to do. The loss of effectiveness was also more pronounced for ads with a smaller page presence and for ads that did not have additional interactive, video, or audio features. Avi Goldfarb is Associate Professor of Marketing, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St George St., Toronto, ON. Tel Catherine Tucker is Assistant Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Business, 1 Amherst St., E40-167, Cambridge, MA. Tel We thank Glen Urban and participants at workshops at IDC, MIT, Michigan, Northwestern, UC Berkeley and Wharton for helpful comments. 1 Electronic copy available at:
2 1 Introduction Automated collection of the vast stream of electronic data from consumers use of the internet represents an opportunity for marketing modelers to better target their marketing campaigns. For example, a product campaign can now use data on website browsing behavior to identify the subsection of consumers who are likely to respond to an ad. This large-scale collection of data has also increased consumer concerns about their privacy. As a result, governments around the world are considering new privacy regulations designed to restrict the use of customer data. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering moving to regulate directly the use of customer data for online ad targeting, rather than relying on self-regulation. However, this regulation is largely being passed in an empirical vacuum. So far, there has been no study that evaluates the effect of such measures on advertisers and media (Lenard and Rubin, 2009). To fill this empirical vacuum, this paper measures the effects of the enactment of data privacy laws on how well advertising performs in the field. We find that in Europe, where privacy laws have been implemented, banner ads have experienced a reduction in effectiveness of over 65 percent in terms of changing stated purchase intent. We saw no similar change in ad effectiveness in non-european countries during a similar time frame. Ads on general interest websites (such as news sites) and plain banner ads experienced a particularly large reduction in effectiveness. In describing proposed US regulation, Congressman Rick Boucher, chair of the subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, said that We do not want to disrupt targeted advertising (Corbin, 2010). However, the empirical findings of this paper suggest that even moderate privacy regulation does reduce the effectiveness of online advertising, that these costs are not borne equally by all websites, and that these costs should be weighed against the benefits to consumers. To measure how well online advertising performs in different privacy regimes, we use data from a large-scale database of field studies that randomized advertising exposure. The 2 Electronic copy available at:
3 database contains 3.3 million survey responses for 9,596 different online display advertising campaigns conducted on different websites over the course of eight years. The surveys were conducted by a marketing research company on behalf of advertisers to measure the effectiveness of each campaign in a way that could be compared consistently over time and across campaigns and help advertisers allocate advertising budgets. For each campaign, on average, 347 web users were surveyed. These users were in the target group to receive the ads. Prior to being surveyed, the research firm set it up so that half of the respondents randomly saw the ad campaign while the other half did not. Each respondent was then asked whether they were likely to purchase the product advertised. The relative increase in purchase intent among the group that was exposed to the ad (the treatment group) compared to those who did not see the ad (the control group) measures the effectiveness of the campaign. We then evaluate how the enactment of the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (2002/58/EC) (the Privacy Directive ) affected the performance of ad campaigns in the European countries that enacted it, relative to other countries that had no such laws, and relative to the performance of ad campaigns in Europe prior to the enactment of the law. Combining the differences across countries and the differences over time with the differences between the treatment and control groups yields a difference-in-difference-indifference econometric specification. Several provisions in the Privacy Directive affected online advertising. The Directive restricted the use of web bugs, tiny pixel graphics that act as invisible tracking devices for a consumer s progress across different webpages. It also required websites to inform customers explicitly about the use of cookies, small pieces of text stored on computers that help to track users over time and it imposed some limitations upon the collection of clickstream data. These limitations are widely seen as stricter than those in the United States and elsewhere (Baumer, Earp, and Poindexter, 2004). These provisions limited the ability of advertisers in our data to use data on past browsing 3
4 behavior to identify a group of customers to whom they wanted to serve ads. For example, a car manufacturer may want to show ads only to people whom they know are interested in buying a car. An attractive way of identifying the target pool for the ad is to use information that a customer appeared to be trying to find information about new cars elsewhere. However, the Privacy Directive limited websites ability to use data on consumers past browsing behavior in this way. This could theoretically limit advertisers ability to show ads to consumers who were likely to be influenced by the advertising message. Our analysis suggests that after the Privacy Directive was passed, advertising effectiveness decreased by around 65 percent in Europe relative to the rest of the world. To check that it is the regulation that is associated with the reduction in effectiveness rather than unobserved changes in European consumers attitudes towards online advertising, we exploit the fact that sometimes people browse websites outside their country. We found that when Europeans browsed websites outside of Europe (mostly in the US) that were not affected by these laws, there was no reduction in ad effectiveness. Conversely, when non-europeans browsed EU websites that were covered by the laws, there was a reduction in ad effectiveness. This suggests that the change in effectiveness we observe is not linked to time-varying changes in consumer attitudes in Europe relative to the US. Websites that had general content unrelated to specific product categories (such as news and media services) experienced larger decreases in ad effectiveness after the laws passed than websites that had more specific content, such as travel or parenting websites. Customers at travel and parenting websites have already identified themselves as being in a particular target market, so it is less important for those websites to use data on previous browsing behavior to target their ads. The Privacy Directive also disproportionately affected ads that did not have additional visual or interactive features. One interpretation is that plain banner ads effectiveness depends on their ability to be appropriate and interesting to their audience. Therefore, the laws curtailing the use of past browsing behavior to identify a target audience 4
5 for the ads would affect plain banner ads disproportionately. We also find that the Privacy Directive affected ads that had a small footprint on a webpage more than those than a large footprint. While lack of ad pricing and non-internet advertising data precludes a full equilibrium analysis of the effects of privacy regulation, we can provide some rough estimates that provide extreme bounds on the potential negative effect of privacy regulation in the US. We estimate that ad effectiveness fell by 65 percent when the EU introduced privacy regulation for online advertising. The IAB (2010) suggest that $8 billion is currently spent on online ads in the US. Therefore, if similar privacy regulation passed in the US and the burden fell on advertisers, they would need to spend $14.8 billion more on online advertising to achieve the same increase in stated purchase intent. If the entire burden of the regulation fell on the websites through reduced prices, online ad revenues could fall as low as $2.8 billion. Our estimates also suggest that this decrease in advertising revenue will be most pronounced for websites providing general-interest content. These estimates are extreme bounds on the potential losses from privacy regulation. They do not take into account potential changes in the composition of websites, changes in the types of ads used, or substitution into offline media such as those discussed in Athey and Gans (2010) and Bergemann and Bonatti (2010). Therefore, these numbers describe worse-case scenarios. If there are general equilibrium shifts in both advertiser and media behavior, the results are likely to be less pronounced. Our findings build on a small empirical literature that has documented costs associated with privacy regulations (Romanosky, Telang, and Acquisti, 2008; Miller and Tucker, 2009). 1 It also builds on previous work which has documented that privacy concerns can influence the 1 The rest of the literature in marketing on the effects of privacy regulation has largely been theoretical. It has focused on the potential for optimal targeting given customer anticipation of firms actions. Much of this literature has focused on pricing (Acquisti and Varian, 2005; Fudenburg and Villas-Boas, 2006; Hui and Png, 2006). Hermalin and Katz (2006) investigate the secrecy aspects of privacy and show that assigning property rights over information may not be sufficient to achieve allocative efficiency. 5
6 effectiveness of different online advertising techniques (Goldfarb and Tucker, 2010). Overall, our results suggest that, while there may be many reasons to enact privacy regulation, regulation may reduce ad effectiveness, particularly for plain banner ads and for general interest websites. Speculatively, this may change the number and types of businesses sustained by the advertising-supported internet. 2 Data and Institutional Background 2.1 Laws We study the effects of the implementation of the Privacy Directive by five EU countries. The Privacy Directive clarified how the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (which guaranteed rights to individuals when it came to the processing of their personal data) pertained to the electronic communications sector. One of the primary purposes of the Privacy Directive was to regulate the use of telephones, faxes, and , but there were also implications for websites that wished to store and use data on their users for marketing purposes. The Privacy Directive was implemented on different dates in different member countries. This variation adds to our experimental variation for identification purposes, and we exploit it in our robustness checks. Table 1 describes the differences in implementation date for each of the European countries for which we have ad campaign data before and after the change in regulation. Our empirical specifications treat the enactment of these laws as a discontinuous event, but in reality, since they were enacted, most EU countries have tightened these provisions enforcement and clarified them in the context of national laws. For example, the 2004 German Telecommunications Act s provisions on privacy were replaced by the German Telemedia Act of This replaced the Telecommunications Act for all electronic information and communication services except pure telecommunication and broadcasting. We do not model these clarifications and amendments, so our estimates should be interpreted as the effect of 6
7 Country Table 1: Implementation of Privacy Directive within Europe Implementation France June 2004 Implemented on 21 June 2004 by the Trust in Computer Processing in the Economy Act and law of 9 July 2004 on electronic communications Germany June 2004 Directive 2002/58/EC implemented as part of the Telecommunications Act that became effective in June Italy January 2004 The consolidated Data Protection Code (legislative decree no. 196/2003) came into force on 1 January Netherlands May 2004 Directive 2002/58/EC has been transposed into Dutch law, mainly by modifications introduced in the Telecommunicatiewet (Telecommunications Act), entering into force on 19 May Other legislation transposing parts of this Directive are, amongst others, the Wet op de Economische Delicten (Act on Economic Offenses) that implements Article 13(4) of Directive 2002/58/EC. UK December 2003 Directive 2002/58/EC is transposed into UK law as the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations which came into effect on December Source: Eighth Annual Report of the Article 29 Working Party on Data Protection. the change in privacy regime which facilitated this legal clarification process, rather than purely the effect of these precise laws as they were initially passed. 2.2 Effect of laws on advertisers The Privacy Directive strengthened European law. Baumer, Earp, and Poindexter (2004) (p. 410) emphasize that the privacy laws that resulted from the Privacy Directive are far stricter than in the US and that maintaining full compliance with restrictive privacy laws can be costly, particularly since that adherence can result in a loss of valuable marketing data. The Privacy Directive affected online ad targeting in three main ways: web bugs, cookies, and collection of clickstream data Web Bugs Web-bugs are 1x1-pixel pieces of code that allow advertisers to track customers remotely. 3 Web bugs are different from cookies, because they are designed to be invisible to the user and also are not stored on a user s computer. This means that without inspecting a webpage s underlying html code, a customer cannot know they are being tracked. Web bugs allow advertisers to track customers as they more from one webpage to another. They also allow 2 We provide the sections of the Privacy Directive pertaining to online advertising in appendix B. 3 These are also sometimes referred to as beacons, action tags, clear GIFs, Web tags, or pixel tags (Gilbert, 2008) 7
8 advertisers to document how far a website visitor scrolls down a page. Combined, this means they are very helpful in determining website visitor interests. Web bugs are very widely used on commercial websites. Murray and Cowart (2001) found that 96 percent of websites that mentioned a top 50 brand (as determined by the 2000 FT rankings) had a web bug. Online privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation voiced early objections to marketers use of web bugs, because of this intentional invisibility (Smith, 1999). Recital 24 of the Privacy Directive explicitly says that So-called spyware, web bugs, hidden identifiers and other similar devices can enter the user s terminal without their knowledge in order to gain access to information, to store hidden information or to trace the activities of the user and may seriously intrude upon the privacy of these users. The use of such devices should be allowed only for legitimate purposes, with the knowledge of the users concerned. This knowledge restriction matters because the need to ensure that users are informed about the use of web bugs removes one of their major advantages, which is that they are otherwise invisible to the user. If advertisers are curtailed in their use of web-bugs, this constrains their ability to use data on current and past browsing behavior to target advertising. The law suggests that (17) For the purposes of this Directive, consent of a user or subscriber, regardless of whether the latter is a natural or a legal person, should have the same meaning as the data subject s consent as defined and further specified in Directive 95/46/EC. Consent may be given by any appropriate method enabling a freely given specific and informed indication of the user s wishes, including by ticking a box when visiting an Internet website. The costs involved in obtaining such such user consent are large. For example, in confidential discussions, executives at two large European companies suggested that explicitly obtaining user consent to be tracked online costs around 15 Euros per user in administrative costs and promotional incentives. There is some ambiguity, however, about whether knowledge directly implies opt-in consent. Some authors, like Gilbert (2008), 8
9 suggest that the law implies that web bugs should be treated like cookies, meaning that opt-out consent is enough Cookies According to Recital 25 of the Privacy Directive, cookies can be a legitimate and useful tool, and their use should be allowed on the condition that users are provided with clear and precise information in accordance with the Data Protection Directive about the purposes of cookies. 4 For U.S.-based websites, notice of the installation of cookies, if it takes place at all, takes place in website privacy policies. The EU law we study is therefore more restrictive on the placement of cookies than US law, and makes it easier for customers to become aware that cookies are being used and to reject them. As discussed by Debussere (2005), the wording of the directive does suggest that the requirements apply to any cookie, rather than cookies used to store personally identifiable information. In general, the tone taken in the Privacy Directive towards cookies is more favorable than that taken towards web bugs, perhaps because cookies can be controlled and are visible to the user. However, cookies pose problems to marketers because of customer deletion, 5 so web bugs (which a user cannot avoid) have been increasingly used in conjunction with, or even in place of, cookies in targeting of advertising (Reiley and Lewis, 2009). Web bugs also have greater reach in terms of tracking ability than cookies because they can be used to track consumer scrolling within a webpage Clickstream Data Clickstream data describes everything a firm knows about its customers from their current web browsing. Typically such data would cover the webpages a user viewed at a website, how 4 On October , after the period we study, the EU voted to require internet users opt-in consent before cookies could be placed on their machines percent of respondents in a recent survey said they deleted cookies each month ( Burst Cookie Survey: Consumers Don t Understand, Say Maybe Useful, But Some Delete Anyhow, Marketing Vox, June 2003) 9
10 long the user spent on each webpage, the visitor s path through the site (including her points of entry and exit), the visitor s IP address, and the webpage the user viewed immediately before arriving at the website. This is useful because an advertiser could potentially serve mortgage ads to a consumer who had just been reading content about buying a new house. However, as pointed out by Wong and Garrie (2006), the Privacy Directive never deals explicitly with restrictions on the use of clickstream data. On the face of it, the Privacy Directive does not seem to forbid the use of such data for targeting advertising. It does appear to permit sites to retain traffic data that is necessary for websites to provide their service or user-requested information society services. However, more recently, legal scholars and privacy experts have pointed out that the presumption that such clickstream data is never personally identifiable is not correct. First, there has been a growth of static IP addresses which can directly identify a user, especially if the network administrator uses identifiers connected with physical location or name. Static IP addresses are increasingly used in large firms, government, and educational institutions. In a recent court case in Germany described by Jakobs (2009), Google has been criticized for not obtaining their users consent prior to websites analyzing their behavior with Google Analytics. Second, it may be possible to collect data inadvertently which is considered private under the scope of the Data Protection Directive if it relates to religion, union member status, or medical issues (Clayton, 2008). For example, in Pharmatrak, Inc. Privacy Litig., 329 F.3d 9, 15 (1st Cir. 2003), the defendant was accused of having collected personal data because the plaintiffs were able to construct individually identifiable profiles for 232 users out of the 18.7 million profiles (0.001%) in the defendant s data set. 6 This distinction between whether clickstream data is personal or anonymous is 6 In this case, the defendant (Pharmatrak) collected data about users who browsed multiple pharmaceutical company websites, in order to compare traffic on and usage of different parts of these websites. The plaintiffs were able to construct these individual profiles largely because the web server recorded the subject, sender, and date of the web-based message a user was reading immediately prior to visiting the website. 10
11 crucial because of the different provisions regarding consent. Anonymous data can be collected if the user is informed and then given the ability to opt out, but personal data requires a clear opt-in form of consent (Baumer, Earp, and Poindexter, 2004). The lack of clarity in whether or how the Privacy Directive applies to clickstream data therefore adds another challenge to online ad targeting beyond web bugs and cookies. Given these ambiguities in interpreting the laws, firm and advertiser response has been mixed. Some firms have been conservative in their interpretation, and have limited their collection and use of data for targeting if they have not received prior consent. Some EU lawyers have even recommended that firms do not store IP addresses unless consent is obtained. 7 Other firms have interpreted the regulations less strictly. For example, an attorney at a large provider of information society services and advertising contacted the authors anonymously, to indicate that they believed that opt-in consent was not required - where consent is required under the eprivacy directive, this consent doesn t have to be opt-in consent, unless this is specifically requested, e.g. as explicit consent or prior consent. [...] [A]s long as they provide information [about how users data is used] and browsers provide an opt-out [for cookies], they comply with the law. Given the controversies over how to interpret the EU Directives in the light of technological change, we emphasize that our estimates show the effects of firms and advertisers interpretations of the EU Directives, not the effects of the laws actual texts unmediated by interpretation. 2.3 Advertising Data We use data on 9,596 different field studies of online ad campaigns worldwide from We define a campaign as a separate ad campaign created for a specific product on a specific website. This database contains over three million survey responses collected by a 7 European Data Protection, German Data protection, Web 2.0 & Law - Dr. Carsten Ulbricht, Monday November 2009, germany-weblaw.grpublic.de 11
12 media metrics agency to measure the effectiveness of these ad campaigns. Each of these field studies were conducted by a firm to assess the relative performance of an existing campaign. After the field study data were collected by the media metrics agency, firms could access the data through a marketing dashboard that allowed them to judge the performance of their portfolio of ads across different websites and different designs. This information was then used to help guide future banner ad design and placement. The focus on evaluation of existing campaigns means that our data contain fully-fledged campaigns typically run on the web with attendant targeting ambitions. We cannot rule out selection effects entirely, but we present evidence below that suggests that ad campaign characteristics do not change significantly in the EU relative to outside the EU after the regulation takes effect. Each field study lasted a mean of 55 days (median 49 days). The campaigns that were evaluated in the field studies advertised over 400 different kinds of products on 40 different categories of websites over 8 years. This means that our data should be thought of as a repeated cross-section. There are 10 different countries in our data. Of these, we have 894 campaigns for Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom within the EU and 8,792 for the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico outside the EU. These field studies are based on randomly displaying ads to a subset of the group of web users who are in the target group for the ad. The browsers in the target group who did not see the ad saw a placebo ad, typically for a non-profit. Both exposed and not exposed (control) respondents were recruited via an online survey invitation that usually appeared in a pop-up window. They then completed the survey online in this pop-up window immediately upon positively responding to the invitation. The survey usually took less than 10 minutes to complete. Each campaign had an average of 347 people in its subject pool, of whom half were exposed to the ad for the product. Because advertising was randomized conditional on being 12
13 in the target group, both exposed and control groups should have had the same underlying purchase intent. The only difference between the two groups is whether they saw the ad, so differences in survey responses for the exposed group can be attributed to the online campaign. This online questionnaire asked the extent to which a respondent was likely to purchase a variety of products (including the one studied) on a five-point scale. In the main specifications in this paper, we focus attention on whether the respondent reported they were Very Likely or Likely to Make a Purchase. As reported in our summary statistics in Table 2, on average over one-third of respondents said they were Likely or Very Likely to purchase. We convert the scale in this manner to reflect the fact that on an ordinal scale, the perceived distance between 1 and 2 may be different than the perceived distance between 3 and 4 (Malhotra (2007); Aaker, Kumar, and Day (2004)). However, we recognize that there is no consensus about whether such scales should be used as discrete measures or used as a continuous measure (Fink, 2009), so we replicate our main result using a linear regression with the full scale as a dependent measure. The use of stated purchase intent as a measure of ad effectiveness, differs from the majority of the marketing literature such as Manchanda, Dube, Goh, and Chintagunta (2006) and Chatterjee, Hoffman, and Novak (2003), which has focused on measuring the effect of ad exposure on click-through rates. In other robustness checks, we use two additional dependent variables: The respondent s favorability toward the product and whether the respondent recalled seeing the advertisement. Respondents rated on a five-point scale their favorability toward the product (as well as toward some decoy products). We use whether a respondent felt favorable or very favorable towards the product as our dependent measure. For recall, the surveys displayed the ad, alongside some decoy ads for other products, and the respondents were asked whether they recalled seeing any of these ads. If they responded that they had seen the focal ad, then we code this variable as one and as zero otherwise. As can be see in Table 2, recall 13
14 is relatively low at 26 percent, much in line with Dreze and Hussherr (2003) s eye-tracker research that suggests that internet users avoid looking at banner ads during their online activities. An important strength of this data set is that it allows comparison of campaigns across many countries over eight years in a variety of categories, including apparel, automotive, consumer packaged goods, energy, entertainment, financial services, home improvement, retail, technology, telecommunications, travel, and many others. These measures are, however, weaker measures of ad success than purchasing (as used by Reiley and Lewis (2009)), because users may claim that they intend to purchase but never do so. However, the direction of our core results depend only on these measures being positively correlated with purchase outcomes, a correlation demonstrated by Bemmaor (1995), because we ultimately focus on comparative ad effectiveness. The very privacy laws that we study also mean it is problematic to track customers subsequent purchase decisions in a manner similar to Reiley and Lewis (2009), who combine web bugs and link online and offline data. The Privacy Directive would require the Yahoo! users that these authors study to give their opt-in consent to the use of web bugs because the data become identifiable when combined with an offline identity. The survey also asked about respondent income, age, and the number of hours spent on the internet. These suggest that survey-takers were slightly more likely to be female than the average population, but that in terms of average income and time spent on the internet, they appear to be representative of the general population of internet users, who are on average slightly wealthier than the general population DiMaggio and Bonikowski (2008). We converted these to zero-mean standardized measures and used them as controls in our regressions. The non-standardized values are reported in our summary statistics in Table 2. The number of observations for each demographic variable makes clear that there are some missing values. We normalize these to zero. The company does not make data available about response rates to the survey, but 14
15 response rates are likely to be low. However, given the experimental nature of our data and that the surveys are explicitly opt-in (and therefore the response rate is unaffected by the implementation of the law), the response rates should not affect our qualitative measures of advertising effectiveness, though it is possible that they might affect the magnitude. For example, these are people who (by design) responded to an ad and therefore might be more ad-sensitive overall. Table 2 suggests that these survey-takers are reasonably similar in characteristics to the general population. Despite potential issues regarding selection of the respondents into the sample, we believe that this is the correct data set for evaluating the effect of the laws on advertising response, for two reasons. First, it is these very survey data that advertisers use when evaluating where to allocate advertising dollars. Therefore, if we are interested in the potential effects of the laws on advertising purchase decisions, then these data are likely to be the best guide to actual advertising decisions. Second, our results suggest little evidence of selection issues based on observable characteristics. Still, we acknowledge that selection issues may still bias the magnitude of the effects we observe and that it is not clear which direction the bias would take. We use two other types of data. First, we use campaign-specific information that described the physical size of the ad and the multimedia features it had. Second, for the purpose of establishing the legal regime, we identify the country from information on where the survey was based. This identifies the relevant legal regime because the presence of a server or other such physical presence generally establishes country of jurisdiction when it comes to internet law. 8 8 Debussere (2005) does note that under one interpretation of the ruling, the restrictions could conceivably apply to non-eu organizations who collect data on EU persons. However, conversations with companies based in the US have made it clear that they have not modified their tracking technologies for customers from the EU who could theoretically visit their website. 15
16 Table 2: Summary Statistics Mean Std Dev Min Max Observations Purchase Intent Favorable Opinion Ad Recall Intent Scale Opinion Scale Exposed EU After EU Law Female Income ($) Age Weekly Internet Hours
17 Table 3: Differences in Differences: Within Europe Mean Control Mean Exposed Difference T-Test Before Privacy Law After Privacy Law Effect of Privacy Regulation on Campaign Ad Effectiveness The Privacy Directive restricts the ability of the advertisers in our data to identify a group of consumers for targeting. Because the marketing research company randomizes ad assignment conditional in being in the targeted group, this means that the Privacy Directive alters the composition of the subject pool (both in the treatment and control groups) and, by extension, how targeted the subject pool can be in our field data. This occurs without affecting the randomization that is crucial to our identification of the effect of online advertising. While we do not know which targeting technologies were used in each campaign, we do know that these are large advertisers on the leading edge of technology and it is therefore likely that they would use the best legal techniques available, including web bugs and cookies. Table 3 displays the raw difference-in-difference for ad campaigns in European countries before and after their laws were enacted. It indicates two things. First, that after the law was enacted, purchase intent was slightly lower for both the exposed and control group. This is to be expected if it is now harder for advertisers to identify an appropriate target group (and consequently an appropriate subject pool). Second, that there was little difference between the exposed and the control groups after the law was enacted. This suggests that advertisers became less able to identify a subject pool where someone who was exposed to the ad would be influenced by the ad. Table 4 replicates this result for the rest of the world using the median date of enactment among the countries in our survey as the date for the placebo privacy law. It does not 17
18 Table 4: Differences in Differences: Outside of Europe Mean Control Mean Exposed Difference T-Test Before European Privacy Law After European Privacy Law appear that there was a comparable decrease in the effectiveness of ad exposure at changing purchase intent outside of Europe. 3 Estimation and Results 3.1 Main specification Next, we use econometric analysis to formalize the insights of Tables 3 and 4. First, we focus on European campaigns only. We use a straightforward specification that reflects both the variation in time to implementation and the randomized nature of exposure to advertising in our data. As such, we start with a difference-in-difference; below, we will add the third difference between the European countries and the other countries. For person i who was exposed to advertising campaign j in country c in year t, we estimate the following specification: Intent ijct = αexposure ij + βexposure ij Law ct + θx i + γ jct + ɛ ijct (1) α measures the effect of being exposed to an advertisement. β captures the core relationship in this paper - the incremental change in advertising effectiveness when a privacy law is in place. X i is a vector of demographic controls including gender, age, income, and hours online. γ jct is a fixed effect which captures differences in baseline purchase intent for each campaign in each website in each country (and therefore controls for the main effect of P rivacylaw ct ); ɛ ijct is the error term. 18
19 Our estimation procedure is straightforward because of the randomized nature of the data collection. We have an experiment-like setting, with a treatment group who were exposed to the ads and a control group who were not. We compare these groups purchase intent, and explore whether the difference between the exposed and control groups is related to the implementation of the Privacy Directive into various European countries. Identification is based on the assumption that coinciding with the enactment of privacy laws, there was no systematic change in advertising effectiveness independent of the law (an assumption we explore below). Heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors are clustered at the website-campaign-level, to adjust for intra-website and intra-campaign correlation across respondents. We report our main results using a linear probability model, though we also show robustness to a logit formulation. This robustness is in line with the findings of Angrist and Pischke (2009) that there is typically little qualitative difference between the logit and linear probability specifications. We focus on the linear probability model because it enables us to estimate a model with 9,596 campaign fixed effects using the full data set of 3.3 million observations (the linear functional form means that we can partial out these fixed effects through mean-centering), whereas computational limitations prevent us from estimating a logit model with this full set of fixed effects. Likely because our covariates are mostly binary and the mass point of the dependent variable is far from 0 or 1, the predicted probabilities all lie between 0 and 1. This means that the potential bias of the linear probability model if predicted values lie outside of the range of 0 and 1 (Horrace and Oaxaca., 2006) is not an issue in our estimation. Table 5 shows our main results, building up to the full specification for equation (1) in column (4). Columns (1) and (2) show general trends in the data without campaign fixed effects. Column (1) confirms that there is a positive relationship between ad exposure and purchase intent. Column (2) replicates the results in Table 3 using the regression format, 19
20 showing that purchase intent is lower in places with privacy laws and that advertising exposure has little relation to intent in places with privacy laws. Column (3) adds demographic controls that would capture differences in the demographic composition of those exposed and not exposed to ads. Little changes, as expected given the randomization of ads. Column (4) adds campaign-level fixed effects (that is, a fixed effect for every productwebsite combination). These fixed effects, combined with the random assignment of the ads, control for four distinct influences on purchase intent. First, heterogeneity across people who browse websites. Second, heterogeneity in people who are targeted for ads for different products. Third, heterogeneity across countries, because each campaign is launched in only one country. Fourth, heterogeneity across time, because these campaigns run on average for 7 weeks. These fixed effects are collinear with the privacy law variable. 9 The privacy variable consequently drops out of the fixed effect specifications. Column (4) reports the change in results for the EU when we add these fixed effects. The estimates suggest that the law is associated with a decrease in effectiveness of over 50% of the initial exposure effect. 10 The identifying assumption for Columns (1)-(4) is that there was no other change in ad effectiveness after 2004 that was not related to the privacy law. However, it could be that generally (perhaps because of customer fatigue or growing inertia) online ads were simply becoming less effective. To rule out this explanation, we compare the change in Europe to the rest of the world as follows: Intent ijct = αexposure ij + β 1 Exposure ij AfterEULaw ct EU c + (2) β 2 Exposure ij BeforeEULaw ct + β 3 Exposure ij NotEU c + θx ij + γ jct + ɛ ijct 9 There is only one campaign in the data that spanned the enactment of the law, with just 30 people caught in this gap. 10 The R 2 falls from column 3 to 4 because the fixed effects are differenced out rather than estimated. 20
Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising
Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising Avi Goldfarb and Catherine E. Tucker August 5, 2010 Abstract Advertisers use online customer data to target their marketing appeals. This has heightened consumersMore information
Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising
Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker University of Toronto and MIT Sloan (University of Toronto and MIT Sloan) 1 / 44 Introduction Privacy Regulation is a new butMore information
Empirical Research on the Economic Effects of Privacy Regulation
Empirical Research on the Economic Effects of Privacy Regulation Catherine Tucker November 8, 2011 Catherine Tucker is Douglas Drane Career Development Professor in IT and Management and Associate ProfessorMore information
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF PRIVACY REGULATION CATHERINE TUCKER* INTRODUCTION... 265 I. CONSUMER INTERNET DATA IS AT THE CORE OF INTERNET ADVERTISING BUT THIS RAISES PRIVACY CONCERNS...More information
Targeting and Internet Advertising. Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto (Based on work with Catherine Tucker, MIT-Sloan)
Targeting and Internet Advertising Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto (Based on work with Catherine Tucker, MIT-Sloan) 1 Internet advertising Search engine advertising $10 billion in 2009 Typically soldMore information
We use data from a large-scale field experiment to explore what influences the effectiveness of online advertising.
CELEBRATING 30 YEARS Vol. 30, No. 3, May June 2011, pp. 389 404 issn 0732-2399 eissn 1526-548X 11 3003 0389 doi 10.1287/mksc.1100.0583 2011 INFORMS Online Display Advertising: Targeting and ObtrusivenessMore information
Online Display Advertising: Targeting and Intrusiveness
Online Display Advertising: Targeting and Intrusiveness The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation As Published PublisherMore information
SUBSTITUTION BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE ADVERTISING MARKETS Journal of Competition Law & Economics (2011) 7(1): 37-44
SUBSTITUTION BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE ADVERTISING MARKETS Journal of Competition Law & Economics (2011) 7(1): 37-44 Avi Goldfarb University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management Catherine Tucker MITMore information
Advertising Standards and Online Advertising
Advertising Standards and Online Advertising Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker May 18, 2011 Abstract The technological transformation and automation of digital content delivery has revolutionized the advertisingMore information
ESOMAR PRACTICAL GUIDE ON COOKIES JULY 2012 Copyright ESOMAR 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Objectives 2 Introduction 3 Definitions 4 SECTION 1: APPLICABLE LAW 4 SECTION 2: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW SOME FAQs 5More information
How Does the Use of Trademarks by Third-Party Sellers Affect Online Search?
How Does the Use of Trademarks by Third-Party Sellers Affect Online Search? Lesley Chiou and Catherine Tucker Occidental College and MIT Sloan (Occidental College and MIT Sloan) 1 / 24 Introduction Figure:More information
How do advertising standards affect online advertising?
How do advertising standards affect online advertising? Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker January 22, 2011 Abstract The technological transformation and automation of delivery has revolutionized the advertisingMore information
Standardization, Standards and Online Advertising
Standardization, Standards and Online Advertising Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker December 9, 2011 Abstract The technological transformation and automation of digital content delivery has revolutionizedMore information
User tracking: Scope and Implementation eprivacy Directive Article 5(3)
User tracking: Scope and Implementation eprivacy Directive Article 5(3) Email Sender & Provider Coalition April 3, 2012 Presented By Karin Retzer 2012 Morrison & Foerster LLP All Rights Reserved mofo.comMore information
How New EU Privacy Laws Will Change Your Marketing
How New EU Privacy Laws Will Change Your Marketing A M A R K E T O W H I T E P A P E R Contributors: Josh Aberant, Director of Privacy, Marketo & Duncan Smith, CEO, icompli Contents The Basics... 4 ScopeMore information
Abilities Centre collects personal information for the following purposes:
Privacy Policy Accountability Abilities Centre is responsible for your personal information under its control. We have appointed a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with this PrivacyMore information
Privacy Policy - LuxTNT.com
Privacy Policy - LuxTNT.com Overview TNT Luxury Group Limited (the owner of LuxTNT.com). knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do soMore information
Table of Contents. 2010 Brightcove, Inc. and TubeMogul, Inc Page 2
Table of Contents Table of Contents... 2 Background... 3 Methodology... 3 Key Findings... 4 Platform Usage... 6 Video Stream Trend Data... 6 Player Loads Q1 2010... 8 Video Uploads Q1 2010... 10 Engagement,More information
Chapter 5 Market Research and Business Intelligence 2001.
Chapter 5 Market Research and Business Intelligence Lessons from Vignette 5 Advertising networks track consumers online Tracking can: reveal consumer preferences lead to better pricing decisions enableMore information
Guidelines on Executive Order on Information and Consent Required in Case of Storing and Accessing Information in End-User Terminal Equipment
Guidelines on Executive Order on Information and Consent Required in Case of Storing and Accessing Information in End-User Terminal Equipment ("Cookie Order") 2nd version, April 2013 Preface...3 1. Introduction...5More information
comscore Media Metrix Description of Methodology
comscore Media Metrix Description of Methodology Unified Digital Measurement United States November, 2013 1 Introduction This document provides an overview the methodologies used by comscore to deliverMore information
Information We Collect and Store as You Access and Use the Site
Effective Date: This Privacy Policy was last revised on January, 2015. 1. What Information Does the Site Collect? (a) Information You Provide to Us Personal Information and Demographic Information. OnMore information
dma How to guide Email and cookies legislation Published by The DMA Email Marketing Council and the IAB Email Marketing Council we are the
dma we are the How to guide Email and cookies legislation Published by The DMA Email Marketing Council and the IAB Email Marketing Council First edition, April 2012 Contents Acknowledgements...2 Introduction...3More information
If you have any questions about our privacy practices, please refer to the end of this privacy policy for information on how to contact us.
c4m Privacy Policy Last Modified: July 20, 2015 Colbette II Ltd., Block 1, 195-197 Old Nicosia-Limassol Road, Dali Industrial Zone, Cyprus 2540 (hereinafter "c4m", Colbette we", "our" or "us") is alwaysMore information
A guide to affilinet s tracking technology
A guide to affilinet s tracking technology Content Introduction 1 What s covered in this Paper? 1 1. Why does affilinet use cookies? 1 Figure 1 the Commercial Model for Performance Marketing 1 2. How doesMore information
UNILEVER PRIVACY PRINCIPLES Unilever takes privacy seriously. The following five principles underpin our approach to respecting your privacy: 1. We value the trust that you place in us by giving us yourMore information
Proof that online ad engagement drives better brand results
Proof that online ad engagement drives better brand results Dwell on Branding: proof that online ad engagement drives better brand results Microsoft Advertising has proven the importance of online advertisingMore information
Quorum Privacy Policy
Quorum Privacy Policy Quorum Analytics Inc. ( Quorum") has created this website (the "Website" or the "Site") to provide an online analytical tool that Subscribers can use to generate Derived AnalyticsMore information
Cookies Compliance Advisory
Cookies Compliance Advisory Note: this is an advisory notice that summarises the current position of the Article 29 Working Group and makes suggestions as to how organisations might practically achieveMore information
Response to the European Commission consultation on. European Data Protection Legal Framework
Response to the European Commission consultation on European Data Protection Legal Framework A submission by Acxiom (ID number 02737212854-67) Correspondence Address: Martin-Behaim-Straße 12, 63263 Neu-Isenburg,More information
Plus500UK Limited. Statement on Privacy and Cookie Policy
Plus500UK Limited Statement on Privacy and Cookie Policy Statement on Privacy and Cookie Policy This website is operated by Plus500UK Limited ("we, us or our"). It is our policy to respect the confidentialityMore information
Collection and Use of Information
AVO Privacy Policy AVOapp, Inc. treat with responsibility for the safety of your personal data. Please read the following to be informed about our Privacy Policy ("Policy"). This Policy details how weMore information
INTRODUCTION We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this privacy policy.
Privacy Policy Last Modified: July 20, 2015 INTRODUCTION We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this privacy policy. This privacy policy describes the typesMore information
Hi-Rez Studios Online Privacy Policy. Last updated on August 20, 2015.
Hi-Rez Studios Online Privacy Policy Last updated on August 20, 2015. THIS ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY (the Privacy Policy ) sets forth certain terms and conditions pursuant to which Hi-Rez Studios, Inc. ( Hi-Rez,More information
Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights Last Updated: May 28, 2015 Introduction
Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights Last Updated: May 28, 2015 Introduction Welcome! TripleFirrre, LLC, dba Just Seconds Apart knows that safeguarding your privacy is serious business. Your privacyMore information
Cookies and consent. The Article 29 Working Party has identified seven types of cookies that are not subject to the consent requirement.
Cookies and consent Cookies are small text files placed on a computer and accessed by the browser when opening a webpage. - DDMA 2012 The statutory requirements governing the placement of cookies wereMore information
Information About Our Organization and General Data Collection Practices. Lotlinx Website and Dealer Customers Marketing Efforts
General Statement Lotlinx has two separate marketing/advertising functions. Firstly, we market our customers (auto dealers) inventory to shoppers currently searching the Internet with the intent to purchase,More information
1. What information do we collect?
CHURNSPOTTER.IO PRIVACY POLICY Last updated: February 03, 2015 Welcome to the http://churnspotter.io Web site (the Site ) owned by PREDICSIS S.A.S, a corporation organized and existing under the laws ofMore information
Seashore Point Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
Seashore Point Privacy Policy and Terms of Service The Residences at Seashore Point and Seashore Point Wellness Center ( Community, We, Us ) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it throughMore information
Web Advertising Personalization using Web Content Mining and Web Usage Mining Combination
8 Web Advertising Personalization using Web Content Mining and Web Usage Mining Combination Ketul B. Patel 1, Dr. A.R. Patel 2, Natvar S. Patel 3 1 Research Scholar, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University,More information
Digital media glossary
A Ad banner A graphic message or other media used as an advertisement. Ad impression An ad which is served to a user s browser. Ad impression ratio Click-throughs divided by ad impressions. B Banner AMore information
Privacy Policy...1. We Respect Your Privacy...1. What information do we collect about internet users?...2
Privacy Policy Privacy Policy...1 We Respect Your Privacy...1 What information do we collect about internet users?...2 What technologies do we use to collect the information? ( Cookies Privacy )...2 HowMore information
Deliverability Benchmark Report
Deliverability Benchmark Report Deliverability Benchmark Report Analysis of Placement Rates in 1 Deliverability Benchmark Report Introduction Marketers have spent years honing their email expertise, refiningMore information
"SEO vs. PPC The Final Round"
"SEO vs. PPC The Final Round" A Research Study by Engine Ready, Inc. Examining The Role Traffic Source Plays in Visitor Purchase Behavior January 2008 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Definitions 4 MethodologyMore information
Document 1.1.2-1 DATA PROTECTION IN DIRECT MARKETING analysis of the legislation in direct marketing Component 1 Activity 1.1.2 Final version The content of this report is the sole responsibility of HumanMore information
Optimize Windows 8 Campaign Website Using Big Data and Online Survey Results
Optimize Windows 8 Campaign Website Using Big Data and Online Survey Results Methodology Challenges Web analytics as a discipline is established yet changing as the technology and privacy regulations evolve.More information
Advertising on the Internet
A Briefing by IAB Europe Advertising on the Internet A quick download for policy makers contents Page What is advertising on the Internet? What is advertising on the Internet? Page 2 Page 3 Page 3 PageMore information
1. Introduction. 2. Sectoral Areas Affected. 3. Data Security. 4. Data Breach Requirements. 5. Traffic Data
1. Introduction Special data protection rules apply to the protection of Personal Data by Data Controllers in the electronic communications sector. These are in addition to the general obligations thatMore information
Cookies Under Control
Cookies Under Control On June 5, 2012 the new Dutch legislation on the use of cookies enters into force. What does this mean for the online marketing business? 1 CONTENTS 3 4 4 7 8 NEW RULES FOR THE USEMore information
Overview This Policy discloses the online data collection and usage policies and practices for this Site only, including an explanation of:
Welcome to www.birracibo.com Wide Web site (the "Site"). The Site is owned and/or operated by Bluegrass Restaurant Partners LLC (here and after the company ) and is subject to the following privacy policyMore information
Web Beacons Guidelines for Notice and Choice
Web Beacons Guidelines for Notice and Choice The following statement was developed by a coalition of companies 1 in an effort to guide the appropriate use of Web Beacons. 2 The coalition is made up ofMore information
ChangeIt Privacy Policy - Canada
ChangeIt Privacy Policy - Canada 1. Policy on Privacy of Personal Information Formulating Change Inc. ( FCI, we, us or our ) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your Personal InformationMore information
reviveads AD BLOCK PREVENTION
Our team at ReviveAds has been tracking and delivering ads to ad block users for the last two years. This data unless specified from another source is from a sample size of 1 billion ads that we have takenMore information
Stricter Privacy Regulations for Online Advertising Will Harm the Free Internet
Stricter Privacy Regulations for Online Advertising Will Harm the Free Internet BY DANIEL CASTRO SEPTEMBER 2010 New evidence from an academic study on the effect of privacy regulations in Europe furtherMore information
DailyMailz may collect and process the following personal information about you:
Privacy Policy DailyMailz is committed to preserving the privacy of all visitors to its website www.dailymailz.nl ("Website"). This privacy policy along with DailyMailz s terms and conditions of use andMore information
AIG INSURANCE COMPANY OF CANADA Privacy Principles
AIG and Individual Privacy We at AIG Insurance Company of Canada (referred to as AIG, we, our, or us ) abide by these and want you, our applicants, policyholders, insureds, claimants, and any other individualsMore information
We may collect the following types of information during your visit on our Site:
Privacy Policy This Privacy Policy (the Policy ) governs the use and collection of information that Horizon Broadcasting Group, LLC (collectively, "we," "our" or the "website") obtains from you while youMore information
Mobile Discrepancancies
Mobile Discrepancancies FAQs 2013 Contents Section One - Discrepancies What are the top reasons for discrepancies? 2 What are the basic checks I should be doing to reduce discrepancies? 3 How can differentMore information
M-112997 Rev 07/2015 FACTS Why? What? How? WHAT DOES CREDIT ONE BANK, N.A. DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION? Financial companies choose how they share your personal information. Federal law gives consumersMore information
New York Privacy Officers Forum. Online Behavioral Advertising: Emerging Legal and Business Issues
2010 New York Privacy Officers Forum Online Behavioral Advertising: Emerging Legal and Business Issues Aaron P. Simpson Partner, Hunton & Williams LLP (212) 309-1126 Peter Weingard SVP, Marketing, CollectiveMore information
ARTICLE 29 Data Protection Working Party
ARTICLE 29 Data Protection Working Party 11601/EN WP 90 Opinion 5/2004 on unsolicited communications for marketing purposes under Article 13 of Directive 2002/58/EC Adopted on 27 February 2004 This WorkingMore information
Vyve Broadband Website Privacy Policy. What Information About Me Is Collected and Stored?
Vyve Broadband Website Privacy Policy Effective: July 31, 2015 Vyve Broadband ( Vyve, we, us, our ) is committed to letting you know how we will collect and use your information. This Website Privacy PolicyMore information
MODERN-LEGAL-NOTICE. ModernLegalNotice.com BUYER BE SMART: 7 REALITIES OF MODERN LEGAL NOTICE
MODERN-LEGAL-NOTICE ModernLegalNotice.com BUYER BE SMART: 7 REALITIES OF MODERN LEGAL NOTICE Legal notification in class action litigation came of age over 20 years ago when newspapers and magazines providedMore information
Johnson Controls Privacy Notice
Johnson Controls Privacy Notice Johnson Controls, Inc. and its affiliated companies (collectively Johnson Controls, we, us or our) care about your privacy and are committed to protecting your personalMore information
Insights from Opera The world s leading mobile ad platform
The State of Mobile Advertising Q3 2012 Insights from Opera The world s leading mobile ad platform 10,000 + 40 BILLION + sites & applications ad impressions per month Publishers include $400 MILLION +More information
www.pwc.com Measuring the effectiveness of online advertising ACA webinar April 15, 2011
www.pwc.com Measuring the effectiveness of online advertising ACA webinar April 15, 2011 Agenda 1. Introductions 2. Background Online Advertising & Measuring Effectiveness 3. Market Context Rapidly ChangingMore information
Google Analytics Basics
Google Analytics Basics Contents Google Analytics: An Introduction...3 Google Analytics Features... 3 Google Analytics Interface... Changing the Date Range... 8 Graphs... 9 Put Stats into Context... 10More information
Media attribution: Optimising digital marketing spend in Financial Services
Media : Optimising digital marketing spend in Financial Services A multi touch study on the role of Facebook, display and search marketing in Financial Services. Executive summary Media solves the keyMore information
COMMENTARY Scope & Purpose Definitions I. Education. II. Transparency III. Consumer Control
CONTENTS: SUMMARY SELF REGULATORY PRINCIPLES FOR ONLINE BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING Introduction Definitions I. Education II. Transparency III. Consumer Control IV. Data Security V. Material Changes to ExistingMore information
Behavioral Data as a Complement to Mobile Survey Data in Measuring Effectiveness of Mobile Ad Campaign
Behavioral Data as a Complement to Mobile Survey Data in Measuring Effectiveness of Mobile Ad Campaign Thao Duong, Ph.D. Senior Statistical Analyst, comscore (firstname.lastname@example.com) Steven Millman Vice President,More information
Your opportunities with media
Your opportunities with mediakit WELCOME TO BOATS.COM EUROPE What is boats.com? boats.com is the largest global marine website with new and used boats for sale. With over 350,000 boat listings offeredMore information
PRIVACY POLICY. What Information Is Collected
PRIVACY POLICY This Privacy Policy applies to Web.com Group, Inc. (along with all subsidiaries, affiliates, successors and assigns thereof, referred to hereinafter collectively as Web.com, "we", "our"More information
Questions regarding the OBA framework
Questions regarding the OBA framework Helsinki, 21 March 2013 Questions answered by Ionel Naftanaila, EDAA Law office: Only IAB members are obliged to follow the OBA framework (=use the icon etc.). TheMore information
Privacy Policy. Effective Date: November 20, 2014
Privacy Policy Effective Date: November 20, 2014 Welcome to the American Born Moonshine website (this Site ). This policy describes the Privacy Policy (this Policy ) for this Site and describes how WindyMore information
Email Marketing Data Protection and Privacy Guidance
Email Marketing Data Protection and Privacy Guidance An international compliance guide for UK companies April 2013 Version 2.3 Steve Henderson Contents Introduction... 3 Email Marketing Regulations...More information
PRIVACY POLICY. Types of Information Collected
PRIVACY POLICY Tres Carnes ( we, our, or us, ) respects and is committed to protecting your privacy. That is why we have adopted this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy lets you know how and for whatMore information
Pricing Models in Web Advertising
Chapter 2 Pricing Models in Web Advertising Abstract The method to determine the price of web advertising is one of the most striking innovations. In the early phases, most of the web advertisements wereMore information
The Internet HAS PROFOUNDLY CHANGED THE WAY AMERICANS SHOP...... a fact that has opened up new possibilities for advertising your business. As consumers continue to turn to online sources in the processMore information
FitCause Privacy Policy
FitCause Privacy Policy EFFECTIVE DATE: June 19, 2013 FuelGooder Inc. d/b/a FitCause ( FitCause ) values your privacy. FitCause is a social fundraising platform empowering individuals to turn their exercisingMore information
The Relative Effectiveness of Sound and Animation in Web Banner Advertisements
Marketing Bulletin, 998, 9, 8, Research note The Relative Effectiveness of and in Web Banner Advertisements Nathan Rae and Mike Brennan This research note reports the findings of two web based surveys,More information
OUR COMMITMENT TO PRIVACY DARTFISH PRIVACY POLICY Our Privacy Policy was developed as an extension of our commitment to combine the highestquality products and services with the highest level of integrityMore information
Behavioral Targeting Legal Developments in Europe and the Netherlands
1 Behavioral Targeting Legal Developments in Europe and the Netherlands Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius Ph.D researcher, focusing on behavioral targeting and privacy law Institute for Information Law, UniversityMore information
Keywords Banner Ad Position; Congruence; Advertising Objective; Banner Ad Fixation; Brand Awareness; Product Knowledge
Impact of Banner Ad Position, Congruence of Banner Ad Content and Website Content, and Advertising Objective on Banner Ad Fixation, Brand Awareness, and Product Akekanat Saowwapak-adisak, Janjao MongkolnavinMore information
Zep Inc.: Global Online Privacy Notice
Zep Inc.: Global Online Privacy Notice Effective Date: March 26, 2015 We at Zep Inc., along with our affiliates (collectively, Zep ), respect your concerns about privacy. This Global Online Privacy NoticeMore information
Zubi Advertising Privacy Policy
Zubi Advertising Privacy Policy This privacy policy applies to information collected by Zubi Advertising Services, Inc. ( Company, we or us ), on our Latino Emoji mobile application or via our Latino EmojiMore information
Working Document 02/2013 providing guidance on obtaining consent for cookies
ARTICLE 29 DATA PROTECTION WORKING PARTY 1676/13/EN WP 208 Working Document 02/2013 providing guidance on obtaining consent for cookies Adopted on 2 October 2013 This Working Party was set up under ArticleMore information
Patents in Europe 2013/2014
In association with Unitary patent and Unified Patent Court: the proposed framework Rainer K Kuhnen Patents in Europe 2013/2014 Helping business compete in the global economy Unitary patent and UnifiedMore information
Leading Practices in Behavioral Advertising & Consumer Privacy Study of Internet Marketers and Advertisers
Leading Practices in Behavioral Advertising & Consumer Privacy Study of Internet Marketers and Advertisers Independently Conducted by Ponemon Institute LLC February 2012 Leading Practices in BehavioralMore information
Mobilebits Inc. Privacy Policy
Mobilebits Inc. Privacy Policy Notice: We have updated our Privacy Policy as of February 1, 2016 Protection of your privacy is of the utmost importance to the Mobilebits Inc. ( MI, us, or we ). PleaseMore information
Measurabl, Inc. Attn: Measurabl Support 1014 W Washington St, San Diego CA, 92103 +1 619.719.1716
Measurabl, Inc. ( Company ) is committed to protecting your privacy. We have prepared this Privacy Policy to describe to you our practices regarding the Personal Data (as defined below) we collect fromMore information
TIP SHEET 5 TIPS FOR SETTING MEASURABLE SOCIAL MEDIA GOALS Social media participation has become a must for businesses today. A survey by CMO in February 2012 revealed that marketers expect to spend almostMore information
Privacy Policy. If you have questions or complaints regarding our Privacy Policy or practices, please see Contact Us. Introduction
Privacy Policy This Privacy Policy will be effective from September 1 st, 2014. Please read Pelican Technologies Privacy Policy before using Pelican Technologies services because it will tell you how weMore information
WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY. Last modified 10/20/11
WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY Last modified 10/20/11 1. Introduction 1.1 Questions. This website is owned and operated by. If you have any questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy, feel free to email usMore information
ESTRO PRIVACY AND DATA SECURITY NOTICE This Data Privacy and Security Policy is a dynamic document, which will reflect our continuing vigilance to properly handle and secure information that we are trustedMore information
Audio Branding Barometer 2010 - Overview
Audio Branding Barometer 2010 - Overview This survey was carried out by the Audio Branding Academy in September 2010. The aim of the survey is to gain valid market data about the audio branding industry.More information
Privacy Policy. Peeptrade LLC ( Company or We ) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy.
Privacy Policy Introduction Peeptrade LLC ( Company or We ) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This policy describes the types of informationMore information
Executive Summary Study on Co-Regulation Measures in the Media Sector
Executive Summary Study on Co-Regulation Measures in the Media Sector Study for the European Commission, Directorate Information Society and Media Unit A1 Audiovisual and Media Policies Tender DG EAC 03/04More information
Privacy Policy. February, 2015 Page: 1
February, 2015 Page: 1 Revision History Revision # Date Author Sections Altered Approval/Date Rev 1.0 02/15/15 Ben Price New Document Rev 1.1 07/24/15 Ben Price Verify Privacy Grid Requirements are metMore information
Talen Energy Corporation Website Privacy Notice
Talen Energy Corporation Website Privacy Notice Talen Energy Corporation and its affiliates (collectively referred to in this notice as Talen Energy, we, us, our and other similar pronouns), have developedMore information
MEMBI 1 PURPOSE OF OUR POLICY 1.1 Membi Limited (Company Number 09775238) of 396a Kingston Road, Kingston Road, London SW20 8LL, United Kingdom (Membi, we, us or our) provides the services offered on theMore information


text:
Anywhoo, Bialik is a self-proclaimed "green" and "granola" mama. So I knew what I was getting into when I picked up her book. I say this because, I'm typically an "eye-roller" when is comes to the Granolas. I am the opposite of a Granola, at least by most measures of the term. I had a scheduled c-section, I breastfed until my lady bits just couldn't take it anymore--and couldn't establish a supply (read stopped for my convenience), fed organic baby food until we just couldn't afford it anymore (WIC only provided non-organic for us while my DH was unemployed), we eat a standard American diet including beef, I use disposable diapers, and my son plays with gasp, PLASTIC toys--some of which are even from China, double gasp.
But, after reading Bialik's book, she (almost) has me as an "Attachment Parenting (AP)" convert, at least I feel a little more "crunchy" after some shifting of my thoughts on certain topics. What is attachment parenting? From what I glean from Bialik's book, attachment parenting is a form of parenting naturally, where you use your primal instincts to raise your child, providing the ideal attachment to the mother, and sense of security for the child. Some of the things that AP parents practice are:
- "Natural, drug-free birth
- Breastfeeding
- Sensitivity to your children and their needs
- Bonding through touch
- Co-sleeping
- Be an available parent
- Positive discipline, i.e. no spanking or other forms if corporal punishment
- Balance of the child's needs and your own" (Beyond the Sling, p.10)
Bialik goes on to back up all of these practices with scientific evidence from reputable sources like the AAP. But all of the beliefs are rooted in the fact that these are all practices that our "cave people" ancestors did, and most Non-Western communities still do as the norm.
Her argument for natural childbirth, and VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean) has me really considering establishing a natural birth plan for when I have my next child. And her honest approach to breast feeding and her tips for establishing breast feeding support, have given me the power to actually WANT to breastfeed, where as before, I viewed it as an obligation to my baby.
With my next child, I also hopeful to be an avid "babywearer". My son, was diagnosed with colic, but it is evident to me in hind-sight that he was just a "high-needs" baby
\ that wanted to be held a lot. I was of the school of thought that you can hold a baby too much, and that the only way to establish independence is to put them down. Bialik's emphasis on a baby's "wants are their needs" for at least their first year of life, really changed my mind on this. I truly believe that if I just would have worn my son, and kept him close, that he would not have been such a screamer and I wouldn't have ended up with post-partum depression.
\ that wanted to be held a lot. I was of the school of thought that you can hold a baby too much, and that the only way to establish independence is to put them down. Bialik's emphasis on a baby's "wants are their needs" for at least their first year of life, really changed my mind on this. I truly believe that if I just would have worn my son, and kept him close, that he would not have been such a screamer and I wouldn't have ended up with post-partum depression.
I also endorse Bialik's take on buying limited amounts of "baby-stuff", and staying away from "unnecessary medical intervention". However, there are some portions of her book that I disagree with.
For starters, Bialik does not let her children watch TV or movies. The book seems to illustrate that her main reasoning for this is because it encourages consumerism in children. I.e. they see Dora on T.V., so they are going to want the Dora doll at the store. Though the AAP doesn't approve of limited T.V. watching until after age 2, my son has been "watching" T.V. since about 3 months. I view the T.V. as a learning tool. My son ONLY watches educational television, with no commercials, with one exception. Disney movies, specifically Cars. It was evident in my son's ability to sign around 9 months that the Baby Signing Time DVDs encouraged his signing. It is also evident in his ability to count to 10 and name all of the letters of the alphabet before the age of two, that watching shows like Team UmiZoomi and SuperWhy are encouraging his alphanumeric skills. Does he point out all of the stuff in the store that has Lightening McQueen and Dora on it? Sure he does, but do I buy all of it for him? No. Because that is part of effective parenting too, that is, teaching kids that they can't always get what they want.
I'm also not totally on board with Bialik's takes on pressure and discipline.
Overall, Bialik's Beyond the Sling is a great book, and well argued. It really got me, a not so crunchy mama, thinking, and provided me with a very well-reasoned, and honest approach to this alternative way of parenting. To be honest, I couldn't put the book down, in part because I find this style of parenting so fascinating (Bialik's second son being "potty-trained from birth" and the topic of Elimination Communication was a jaw dropper.), and because I now wish that I could parent in such a fashion (I think I would have to develop a WHOLE new idea of patience). Overall, I give this book 5 out of 5 stars for it's honest, real-life application and it's ability to open my eyes, and leave my judgement behind.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Best Way to Experience the Fun of Camping without Sacrificing the Comforts of Home
If you are an avid camper, you will want to have a look at this Camping Car Pliant. In North America camping has become a very popular pastime for people to get away from the rush of the city lifestyle. If you have ever been camping, you know that spending the whole time in a small tent can turn into something that is less than desirable by the end of your trip. That is why it's so great that there are campers and tent trailers like this fold out camper that can be pulled behind a car. Wouldn't it also be cool to use this fold out camper as a tiny home perhaps? Maybe just for a short while anyway. Tiny houses can be as small as this folding camper and having a small space that you can take wherever you go can be ideal for people who move around a lot, or who are always on the go for work.
The foldout camper trailer is able to be pulled by a small vehicle, which makes it great for people who don't have a high towing capacity on their vehicle. Certain tiny homes can be up to 10,000 pounds which is a lot to have to pull behind a vehicle. Cars would not be able to tow that much, and many SUVs would not even be able to tow that much weight. For most tiny homes you would need a heavy duty truck to be able to pull a tiny home's weight. But not for this tiny camper trailer, it was designed to be as light as possible so that people with only a car can take it anywhere they, please. The sides of the camping trailer fold out once it is parked at the camping site. One side is canvas, and the other is clear vinyl material. When it unfolds it has double the space!
The hard pard of the camper is the main part from which the other two parts fold out from. Inside the hard centre of the camper trailer, there looks to be a kitchen and a bathroom, that you can see in the drawings. There is lots of shelving in this area of the camper as well, making it great for longer trips as well as shorter ones. The one side of the fold out part seems to be a sleeping area, and the other seems to be a lounging living room area, with fold out chairs, sofa and a table. The sides are clear to act like windows to look out to the outdoors. The protective covering on the sides can also fold up partially and the floor remains, so that you can basically have a deck to hang out on. You can see a person in one of the photos fishing in a lake sitting on the edge of the deck.
Orange and white seem to be the main colours of this camper giving it sort of a retro feel with a modern flare. The design is very simple and minimalistic keeping all of the lines clean on the trailer. This would make for the perfect tiny home away from home when you go on your camping expeditions. Much better than tenting it, and cheaper than owning a cabin or renting hotels while traveling. It would totally be like having a tiny house on the go. Owning a cabin just means that you go to the same place all the time, and while that can be fun too, being able to take your house on the road with you is wonderful and there is so much that you can see just by driving. This tiny camper fold out trailer is excellent, and would be such a great investment to make. Check out more photos of it on Small Spaces Addiction, as well as more amazing small spaces and tiny homes from all over the world. You will be sure to be inspired by these creative spaces!
Photo Gallery
Check out our YouTube Channel
If you liked this story, you may also like our YouTube channel, where we go off the grid and scout unique properties for sale
Subscribe on YouTube toThe Off Grid Scout for More Videos
Click the YouTube button to Subscribe for free


text:
Tasmanian Wonders
Combining spectacular landscapes with exposure to rich convict history and gourmet artisan produce, it takes you to unforgettable locations and ensures memorable encounters. Visit magnificent Russell Falls, the Gordon River, Cradle Mountain, the Tarkine Wilderness and Freycinet National Park, and step back in time at Port Arthur and in Hobart.
Departs Selected dates 01 September – 29 December 2018
6 nights
from $959*pp
4 nights
from $889*pp
9 days
from $1,499*pp
14 days
from $6,260*pp
Subscribe to our newsletter to get early notifications of our great offers and promotions!
Chelsea Cruise & Travel
Best Travel Agency Group Winner 2015
Copyright © , 2018. Site by IBC Digital. Powered by Verdi CMS


text:
FieldOne Mobile will help Field Service technicians in hundreds of industries to perform better with advanced mobile field management tools on the go: scheduling, inventory, customer info, alerts and navigation.
Online PR News – 26-September-2011 – – FieldOne Systems, a leading provider of software solutions for field service businesses, has announced the release of its new native mobile app for Android. The FieldOne mobile app, priced at $30.00 a month, will enable field service technicians to stay connected to the office when they are on service calls, increasing efficiency at each step of the process, leading to thousands of dollars in potential savings for a company each month.
"Smart field service industries are embracing technologies that get more productivity and profit out of the same activities," said Ilan Slasky, CEO of FieldOne Systems. "For only a dollar a day, FieldOne Mobile for Android simply eliminates the filling out, submission, processing, filing and storing of all the paperwork we've always assumed had to be there — work orders, schedules, inventory reports, and invoices. It consolidates and simplifies the whole process and helps everyone on the team, from the field techs to dispatchers to administrative staff and management."
FieldOne Systems revolutionized the field service industry with its service management software, enabling office staff to spend less time entering and managing data, freeing up valuable time for work that generates revenue. Now with the FieldOne app for Android, technicians can better leverage this same software advantage while on the road. For only one dollar per day, the mobile app enables field service techs to display up-to-the-minute, multi-day service technician schedules and job details; update work schedule status in real-time, including last minute changes, to keep track of your techs and the time each job takes; get turn-by-turn driving directions to the job sites, and more.
"After years of being a leader in the field service industry, we've invested yet again in taking our product to the next level, based on feedback and customer requests," said Shloma Baum, Founder, President & Chief Technology Officer. "Mobile devices are already the standard for many of us, especially those not sitting at a computer most of the day. It's called a smart phone for a reason — and with our new app, service technicians will finally see how smart it — and they — can be."
iPhone and iPad apps are in late-stage development and will be released in the Fall.
For a full list of features, the product demo, and sales contact information, please visit www.fieldone.com/mobile.
About FieldOne
FieldOne Systems is a leading provider of software solutions for field service companies, enabling them to spend less time entering and managing data, freeing up valuable time for work that generates revenue.
FieldOne helps service companies and their employees increase efficiency and productivity by leveraging technology that was built for their specific needs. FieldOne software is used by businesses large and small, across a range of industries - all of whom share a similar desire to better manage the complex nature of their service organizations. The software is used by almost everyone in the organization, from owners to service managers to warehouse crew to administrative personnel to schedulers and dispatch managers, and the technicians in the field.
Founded in 2001 by Shloma Baum, FieldOne serves a variety of clients and industries including property management firms, HVAC, medical and diagnostic, IT and technology companies, mechanical, janitorial, pool and landscaping companies, specialty contractors, plumbing, electrical, roofing, irrigation and security companies, and many more in the US, Canada and around the world. www.fieldone.com


text:
Wedding Wonder of the Week: Tamaryn's Treasures
Hello! I'm so excited to be featuring the most scrumptious company - and I mean scrumptious in every way! From their gorgeous vintage china hire to the yummy and 'oh-so' pretty sweetie tables, Tamaryn's Treasures is a real delight and I'm so pleased that they are my Wedding Wonder of the Week! I have had the great pleasure of working with Tamaryn on a few occasions this year and not only does she have a great company to top it off she is a fantastic girl........read for yourselves:
- Tell me a bit about yourself and your company.
Tell me a bit about yourself and your company. I am 30 years old and have worked in the wedding industry for six years. I am creative and love everything to do with weddings! Tamaryn's Treasures hires out vintage china, candelabras, table plans, decorations and pretty much everything you can think of! We do sweetie tables and cupcakes and have a beautiful online boutique selling confetti, parasols, favours, decorations and of course... your fabulous stationery! (I am very lucky that Tamaryn sells Kate Lewis Design wedding stationery on her beautiful website!)
- Are you married? If yes, will you share some of your details?
We got married last July in
Mallorca. We have been going there for the last seven years and it was where Jeremy proposed to me. We were blessed to have 45 guests travel to our wedding. The surroundings were very bright, green and luscious so to make it look weddingy (?) and stand out, I went for a very pale blush pink and lots of white. In response to Kate's question 'What did you love the most?' I would struggle to say really. I loved all of it so much. I remember being so excited the day before when everyone was arriving and everyone was in the best mood as they had just arrived on holiday! I adored our flowers so much. My husband said I didn't look at him when I was walking down the aisle because I was mesmerised by the flowers. I went for a style that I had never seen before and they were so personal to us and our wedding. When I see any of the flowers we used now it takes me back to that day. I loved our cake and wedding favours from Peggy Porschen... so much so that we drove our cake to Mallorca! I loved my lace and sparkly dress, my tiara, veil and shoes! I loved my bridesmaid dresses a lot too. They all looked so stunning. They designed the dresses themselves... I just chose the fabric and said it had to be knee length... the rest was up to them!
- What attracted you to working in the wedding industry?
I just loved everything about it. I love being creative and organised. I love running my own business. I love flowers, stationery, cakes, wedding dresses and everything that goes with weddings. I'm still like a kid in a sweet shop looking through magazines and new products!
- What is your favourite part of working with bride & grooms (to-be)?
When they are so happy on the day once they have seen everything set up and it looks just like (or better than!) they dreamed!
- What is your most favourite wedding theme at the moment?
I'm definitely into the sweetie theme at the moment! Whenever I set up a sweetie table, everyone at the venue just goes mad for it and are so excited.. and they aren't even the guests! I love doing them with ornate jars and in vintage pinks... it's just so girly!
- Top wedding tip?
Choose a company to do your decorations whose style you like... they will get your vision! A professional and creative company will help you make your venue look stunning whatever your budget. I love creating a reception that has a huge impact but it is even more satisfying when you've done it to a tight budget... I love a challenge!
- What do you think the next big wedding trends might be?
Sweetie Trees for centre pieces! I love doing sweetie tables but I am even more excited to be starting sweetie trees. They look amazing and it is a great way to get guests to mingle as they go up to other tables to steal their sweets!
- Where can we find your fabulous company?
www.tamarynstreasures.co.uk. We have offices in Alderley Edge,
Cheshire; Sheffield and Harrogate, Yorkshire.
You can also find Tamaryn's Treasures on Twitter and Facebook
- What are your plans for the future?
Apart from the sweetie trees... just to continue with Tamaryn's Treasures. We only started less than a year ago and already have 40 weddings this year. All I want to do is see this keep growing and receive lots of stunning photos and comments from new brides!
I'd like to say a massive thanks to Tamaryn for taking the time to share all of this with us and for sending so many gorgeous photos! Anyone else feel the need to go and buy a huge bag of sweets now too???
Love Kate x
Love Kate x


text:
"Mistakes are made all the time, but there were numerous mistakes made in this case," said Patrick MacDonald, 54. "I would like Scotiabank to fix this, so that it won't cost me a dime."
MacDonald's wife Arlene died in December 2008 after a long battle with breast cancer. Their oldest girl was 16 and the youngest boy was five when their mother passed away.
The following spring, her grieving husband, who was also executor of her will, went into their Scotiabank branch in Antigonish, N.S., and asked them to transfer her then $80,000-plus RRSP into his, a routine transaction when a spouse dies.
Left bank to do its job
MacDonald is a land surveyor by trade and said he knew nothing about spousal RRSP rollovers. Besides, he said, he had much more important worries at the time.
"I was overwhelmed with worry, and the priorities were always the kids. I was reading up on what happens with kids after they lose their mom," said MacDonald.
"Oh, God. There were too many emotions and too many other things happening with the kids."
MacDonald gave Scotiabank his wife's will and death certificate and signed all the papers. He said he was assured the transfer, from her Scotia iTrade account to his, would be looked after.
"It was such a standard thing," said MacDonald. "They knew what I needed, so I felt confident that I was looked after. I left and carried on with life."
The bank, however, failed to facilitate the transfer before a one-year deadline, after which his wife's money could no longer be rolled over and was fully taxable.
"I slipped through the cracks somehow," said MacDonald.
Lost paperwork, missed deadline
A chronology recently sent to him by Scotia iTrade shows that in 2009 the branch lost the initial paperwork in internal mail, including his wife's legal documents. MacDonald said he went in twice that year to give them the required paperwork.
It indicates branch staff then let the file sit for a year until late in 2010. Staff also failed to return a call from Scotia iTrade, asking why the paperwork for the transfer hadn't been sent.
The bank should have completed the rollover by Dec. 31, 2009, because government rules say RRSPs have to be transferred to a beneficiary's account no later than the end of the year, following the year of death.
In the meantime, MacDonald was getting mildly annoyed, because he kept getting statements in his wife's name.
"I didn't know that there were tax implications [at the time]," said MacDonald.
In protest over the delay, he transferred his own RRSP account to BMO Nesbitt Burns. He also asked BMO to deal with Scotiabank to get his wife's money, which he said it did with no success.
"It was too late. The grace period [to avoid taxes] was past."
MacDonald eventually received a tax bill that now stands at more than $35,000.
"It's $30,000 that we can't use that's going to go to the government that shouldn't be going to the government," said MacDonald.
Family savings depleted
"This was supposed to be all rolled over into my RSP … and if I needed it before retirement it's $30,000 that could have gone to the kids' education."
The chronology suggests Scotiabank was in no hurry, partly because it had his wife's date of death wrong.
After the deadline had passed, the Scotia iTrade said it discovered that "Arlene MacDonald died in December 2008, and not in 2009 as initially thought."
When MacDonald was broadsided with the tax bill, he said the bank branch manager told him he was sorry. Until very recently, however, he was told he wouldn't be compensated.
"We regret we are not in a position to provide compensation with respect to any penalties you have incurred from Canada Revenue Agency," read an email from Scotia iTrade on Oct. 3.
Scotiabank sudden reversal
As a result of our inquiries, however, Scotiabank has now offered MacDonald $37,000 to cover his tax bill. He received the offer four business days after Go Public contacted Scotiabank in Toronto.
A bank spokesperson told Go Public, "As a result of lost paperwork, key dates were missed, and this led to other difficulties in resolving this account. This is a rare and regrettable occurrence, and we apologize."
Scotiabank still hasn't released his wife's funds, though, because to this day it says it is missing required paperwork.
The fund has grown to $111,000. MacDonald is still infuriated he isn't able to keep it growing — tax free in his RRSP — until retirement.
"I was only 49 when she died, so I had another 21 years for that to grow in a tax free haven," said MacDonald, who added that he expects additional taxes will apply to the money the fund has earned since his wife's death.
Don Taylor, an Ottawa-based investment adviser with the Investment Planning Counsel, believes this case highlights a bigger problem — banks giving customers less and less personal service.
"I believe the larger institutions, as they are getting larger and larger, are not necessarily focusing in on the individual. You become a number in a banking system in their computer system. You are no longer a person," he said.
Taylor points out that the bank must have had the paperwork it needed from MacDonald, because otherwise it would not have been able to inform the Canada Revenue Agency that the RRSP money was subject to taxes.
"Someone dropped the ball here. And that's your large institution."
Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public
Follow @CBCGoPublic on Twitter
Also on HuffPost


text:
Southern Tide was founded by a 23 year-old young man named Allen Stephenson. Raised in the South, Allen saw a need in the marketplace for high-quality clothing with a classic Southern style.Learn More
19 Brook Street
Historic Biltmore Village
Our newest project, 19 Brook Street features 6 luxury condominiums atop a main level of retail spaceLearn More
Western Plaza
Knoxville, TN
Since the 1950's, Western Plaza has been Knoxville's premier shopping destination. With over 200,000 square feet of leasable retail and office space, the center has attracted exceptional local and national retailers.Learn More
10 Brook Street
Historic Biltmore Village
Representing the largest property in Biltmore Village, this 70,000 square foot building completed in 2008 follows the traditional Tudor inspired architecture which dominates Historic Biltmore Village.Learn More
4 Vanderbilt Park Drive
Historic Biltmore School
The Historic Biltmore High School, a 57,000 square foot building, was erected in Asheville, NC in 1927. After 2 years of construction and an expenditure of $12 million dollars, the project was completed in 2012 and is now 100% occupied by professional and medical services.Learn More
Harbison Crossing
Columbia, SC
Ideally located in the heart of Columbia's best retail corridor, this 13,000 square foot building with one residential apartment embodies a classic Tudor style architecture.Learn More


text:
Anna Amtmann,
Research Group Leader and Professor of Plant Nutrition
Anna is an internationally recognized expert in the molecular mechanisms.
Anna Amtmann is an internationally recognized expert in the molecular mechanisms that enable plants to adapt to mineral nutrient deficiency, salinity and drought. She obtained her PhD from the University of Göttingen in Germany and worked as postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Dale Sanders, then at the University of York, UK, before taking up a Lecturership at the University of Glasgow in 2001. Anna's research is holistic, addressing questions relating to ion transport, metabolism, transcriptional regulation and epigenetics across scales, employing technologies such as patch clamping, confocal microscopy, microarrays, and next-generation sequencing.
While Arabidopsis thaliana and its related wild halophytes are preferred experimental systems in her laboratory, fundamental findings from these model plants are being translated into crops in collaboration with the James Hutton Institute, the John Innes Centre and industry, including Bayer CropScience. Current research projects investigate opportunities to improve plant growth and drought tolerance through epigenetic engineering, to increase pest resistance in oilseed rape, to use synthetic biology to desalinate water and to discover the genes that adjust root architecture to mineral nutrient supply.
Anna has served as coordinator and chair of numerous scientific and professional meetings, including Gordon Research Conferences on Salt and Water Stress in Plants; she is Associate Editor for Plant Physiology and for Plant, Cell & Environment; and she is a member of the steering committee of the BBSRC Crop Improvement Research Club (CIRC).


text:
Maypole chopped down for Tour de France
A 75ft maypole that stood in the Yorkshire town of Otley for at least 50 years has been cut down – partly because of the Tour de France. Believed to be the tallest permanent maypole in Britain, it was removed without warning to the horror of local people.
Safety experts cut down the pole after an assessment — ordered because the Tour de France will pass by next week — found that it was rotten.
But local councillors in the town, which is within Leeds metropolitan borough, complained its sudden removal had left some local people "quite upset". Ryk Downes, a councillor, told The Daily Telegraph: "To bring the maypole down was the right call.
"However to do it this way, with no consultation or planning is a disgrace. What would have been a tourist attraction, helping put Otley on the map and in the minds of tourists from around the world at the Grand Depart [of the Tour] is now nothing more than a shaved stump."
Mark Dobson, an executive board member at Leeds city council, said that "extensive decay" had been found at the base of the maypole, saying that it had "posed a serious risk to members of the public in what is a busy area of Otley".
"It was simply not acceptable to put the public at risk by delaying action to deal with that situation," he said.
Local historian Paul Wood said a maypole could have stood in Otley since 1660.
A photograph from 1906 shows a maypole towering over four-storey buildings nearby. The recently removed maypole was put up in Manchester Square in 1962.
Mr Wood said people had not danced round the maypole for some time partly due to increased road traffic.