InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
March 6, 2000
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By Rick Whiting
DoubleClick faces a half-dozen lawsuits and informal inquiries by the Federal Trade Commission about its use of consumer data. The company has even come under pressure from business partners. Last week, DoubleClick denied published reports that search-engine provider AltaVista Co. was distancing itself from DoubleClick. But a DoubleClick source says AltaVista has stopped providing some customer demographic data to the online advertising company.
DoubleClick CEO Kevin O'Connor says the lack of standards for using customer data finally caught up with the fast-moving Internet marketplace--and his company. "It really ignited over the last three weeks," he says of the controversy. "The lack of any good data-privacy standards has created this vacuum where no one knows what's right and what's wrong."
O'Connor says he expects standards to emerge from industry groups such as the Internet Advertising Bureau and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, possibly with input from government entities such as the FTC and the Commerce Department. The company is also recruiting a chief privacy officer to help it develop and monitor data-privacy standards and act as a liaison with the government, business partners, and consumer organizations.
mistake related to privacy transformed a company from Internet darling to pariah in less than a month. DoubleClick Inc., which sells and manages online advertisements for thousands of Web sites, was a hot stock on Wall Street, rising from $37 in August to $118 in mid-February. Then, news broke that DoubleClick was being sued over misuse of data. The stock subsequently fell to $80. A barrage of criticism from consumer groups forced the company to abandon plans to match "personally identifiable" information gathered online and offline with clickstream data.
Return to main story, "Mind Your Business."
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