New York, NY – September 19, 2024 -- Lou Mastria, CEO and President of the Digital Advertising Alliance, released the following statement regarding the release of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report on social media and video streaming services.
"While the [FTC] report largely focuses on self-regulation around children’s privacy, it fails to acknowledge the remarkable success of industry self-regulation more broadly. Cross-industry self-regulatory efforts like the DAA's AdChoices program have provided ubiquitous real-time access to information and choices around interest-based advertising across millions of web pages and billions of ads.
Compliance with the DAA's program has always been independently enforced, so the program offers accountability with teeth, as highlighted through 120+ publicly announced compliance actions, and the FTC itself has cited the DAA Principles as a basis for its own enforcement action against a company.
According to a survey conducted earlier this year, the vast majority of Americans recognize the AdChoices icon and say it is useful, easy to understand, and important for access to privacy choices. Put simply, consumers support the AdChoices approach, which has been proven in the marketplace for more than 13 years, and we urge Congress to work closely with trusted self-regulatory programs like the DAA in developing a federal solution."
This statement also was included, in part, in initial media coverage of the report.
