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Posts Tagged ‘online advertising’

Google has announced the beta launch of  ‘interest based’ advertising on their partner sites and YouTube. Will this lead to better advertising ?

Interest based advertising is where advertising content is targeted at internet users based on current and past web surfing history. Typically this is achieved by using ‘cookies’, which are small files stored on the user’s computer, which contain browsing history data. This method of serving advertisements differs to Google’s traditional ‘keyword’ or ‘content’ based advertising, which relies on the keywords or website content to target advertising.

Google believes that:

“…..there is real value to seeing ads about the things that interest you. If, for example, you love adventure travel and therefore visit adventure travel sites, Google could show you more ads for activities like hiking trips to Patagonia or African safaris.“

Criticisms of online advertising sometimes arise from poor quality leads due to the deficiencies in reaching an advertisers target audience. Google’s new interest based advertising may lead to higher quality leads for advertisers and more relevant advertisements for web surfers.

No sooner than Google’s announcement, many people have come out criticising interest based advertising as a threat to privacy, as it relies on tracking the websites an end user visits.

Google claims that it has taken 3 important measures to ensure user choice and privacy, these are:

• Transparency – Users will able to click on advertisement labels to obtain more information about how advertisements are service and what information is used. Google also proposes to expand this in the coming year;
• Choice – Users will have access to the  Ads Preferences Manager tool which lets them “view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.“
• Control – Users will be able to opt out of interest based advertising. Google have take some significant steps to ensure this by designing a plug in for web browsers to maintain the users choice.

We think Google’s interest based advertising may prove to give advertisers more qualified and better quality leads, while users will now see advertisements which are more relevant to their interests – resulting in a better user experience. Only time will tell, but at least Google has thought through the choice and privacy issues, and it appears to us as IT Lawyers, that they have implemented a sensible and effective process to ensure this.

Tags: Google Advertising, interest based advertising, IT Law, IT Lawyers, online advertising, Privacy, Privacy Law, Privacy Lawyers, technology law
Posted in Domain law and domaining, IT Law, Privacy | Comments Off

Domain monetisation regularly causes problems for this breed of persons called ‘domainers’, with threats of domain deletion, but what does auDA’s (au Domain Administration Ltd – the Industry Regulator for the .au domain space) ‘Domain Monetisation Policy 2008-10’ (“the Policy”) actually say ? We will look at these issues in part 1 of our 2 part blog series on domain monetisation.

Our position on many of auDA’s policies is well known within the industry – they are in many cases unreasonable, do not reflect the practical realities, and do not reflect developments in the .au domain space. Whilst we acknowledge that auDA’s job as the regulator is a difficult one, and that this isn’t helped by some people who blatantly do the wrong thing, it is the legitimate domainers who get caught in the net.

The greatest issues with the Policy arise from the definitions or ‘terminology’ as auDA likes to call it contained in the Policy. The three definitions that we would like to focus on in the Policy are:

a) “domain monetisation” means registering a domain name in order to earn revenue from a monetised website;

b) “monetised website” means a website or landing page that has been created for the purpose of earning revenue from advertising, including monetised domain parking pages;

c) “domainer” means a person who has registered a domain name under the close and substantial connection rule for the purpose of domain monetisation;

These definitions are rather unusual.

The definition of ‘monetised website’ is in essence is a website that has been created for the purpose of earning revenue from advertising. Last time we checked the internet, most commercial  (and some non commercial) websites sought to earn revenue from advertising their goods and services, after all, isn’t this what commercial websites are for ?

On the basis of this definition www.coopermills.com.au,  www.news.com.au and www.sunsmart.com.au are monetised websites. If we were to register lawyers.com.au, and develop a website to use in promoting our services, then this would also be a monetised website. auDA agrees with this interpretation in clause 4.2 and says:

“If a domain name resolves to a monetised website then auDA is entitled to regard the domain name as having been registered for the purposes of domain monetisation….”

Bearing this in mind we look at the definition of ‘domain monetisation’, which means registering a domain in order to earn revenue from a monetised website. On this basis almost all domains registered for commercial (and some non commercial) websites, are registered for domain monetisation.

Having established that almost all commercial entities who have registered domains for use with their business websites are monetised websites, we look at the definition of ‘domainer’.

A domainer is someone who registered a domain name under the close and substantial connection rule (for those of you who are not familiar with auDA Published Policy – Domain Name Eligibility and Allocation Policy Rules for the Open 2LDs (2008-05) – this is one of the grounds upon which you may register a .com.au domain name under – the other is, an exact match, abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s name or trademark) for the purpose of monetisation.

The policy goes some way to narrow its extremely broad definitions – so now we have a situation that if you are a commercial entity who has registered a domain and developed a website to resolve from it, and that domain name is not “an exact match, abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s name or trademark;” then you are a ‘domainer’. Congratulations!

Two ‘domainers’ that spring to mind are News Limited by virtue of its www.news.com.au website and the Anti Cancer Council of Victoria by virtue of its website www.sunsmart.com.au on which it sells a large range of products.

In part 2 of our blog series we will look at the significance of being a domainer. Stay tuned…..

Tags: Australian domain law, Domain Monetisation, domain name law, domain policy, domaining, online advertising
Posted in Domain law and domaining | Comments Off