Ad Network Monitors Web Habits

The New York Times > Technology > E-Commerce Report: " DoubleClick made itself the object of scorn among privacy advocates by trying to track Internet users individually and show them ads related to their surfing habits.

Tacoda, an online marketing company based in New York, will announce today the creation of a network of 60 Web sites, including USAToday.com and the Web site of The Tampa Tribune, that allow its members to display ads based on how people surf through the network. The difference from DoubleClick is that Tacoda's service, called AudienceMatch, will not know who those surfers are, just where they visit.

Mr. Morgan said AudienceMatch is similar to Google's AdSense program, which has gained a strong following among publishers in the last year. With AdSense, marketers bid for the right to have their text messages appear near stories that have specific phrases or words related to the advertiser's product or service. When the ad is clicked on, marketers pay Google a fee.

With AudienceMatch, advertisers like Vonage, Electronic Arts, LowerMyBills.com and others bid not on words or phrases, but on preset groups, like "gadget geeks," or "car buyers."

Popular news sites like The Wall Street Journal Online, The New York Times on the Web and others have long relied on registration data and recent surfing activity of their users to deliver more targeted ads on behalf of marketers. AudienceMatch helps publishers deliver ads to a niche audience without collecting personal information. (Publishers that do collect personal information will not be allowed to incorporate it into AudienceMatch.)

Sites within Tacoda's network share an undisclosed percentage of the revenues for each ad with the publishers that provided the data about the user's surfing activity.

Ms. Garcia said she expected the service to attract advertisers, but perhaps not at the same rate as Google, Yahoo's Overture and others that offer similar, if less well-targeted, services. And although Tacoda has hoped to overcome privacy concerns, they still loom as one possible drawback, she said.

Tacoda's system has its limitations. For instance, because the service tracks computers, not computer users, parents who share a PC with their teenage children could find themselves reading acne medication ads, while their children might see messages about retirement planning. Mr. Morgan acknowledged such imperfections, but said: "The effectiveness of advertising today is terrible, so you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be better."