Specific Media

Privacy

Our commitment to protecting people’s privacy online is as serious as our dedication to providing the most relevant advertising.

Specific Media take the issue of user privacy on the internet very seriously and the following is intended to be a plain English explanation of the approach we currently employ. We always welcome comments on our policy and constantly strive to maintain a policy which improves the service we provide to advertisers, publishers and web users in general.

What we do

Specific Media is an online advertising network. We work with hundreds of websites in the US, UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway buying display (image) advertising space and re-selling it in carefully targeted packages to advertisers and agencies. The targeting options we offer range from simple geographic locations, to more complicated targeting involving user behaviours. As we target, we aim to identify the sites and users that are most likely to create a response to an advertiser's campaign.

Tracking

To gain a greater understanding of a site's performance, or a user's general interests, we use a variety of tracking technologies to determine the websites on our network which the user visited previously and/or where the user clicked on an advert. Using this information, we can calculate which websites and/or which broad interest characteristic of user is likely to best respond to a particular campaign. This takes two forms:

• Performance Tracking

We monitor the sales, signups or visits to certain predetermined pages on our advertisers' websites. We reconcile these page 'hits' back to the ads that were shown to allow us to manage advertising campaign delivery, and report on this to our advertisers and publishers. We use cookies to limit the number of ads any individual computer is exposed to. This limit is agreed by the advertiser, Specific Media and the publisher and this prevents users repeatedly seeing the same advert.

• Behavioural Profiling

To create a behavioural profile, we observe with which websites within our network users have interacted, and we determine what topics those websites are about. This information is combined to generate an interest profile for your computer. This is important - we don't monitor your internet usage other than when you visit a website within our network. Depending on the content of the sites you visit, we build an anonymous profile which contains information on your potential interests and a statistical estimate of your likely demographic. For example, if you visit a sports site within our network then we may classify you as broadly interested in sport.

How we use this data

Specific Media uses the information collected to target advertising campaigns more effectively. The aim is for you to see adverts which you are more likely to be interested in rather than ads that you aren't. We do this by comparing the information relating to your anonymous profile against our selection of advert campaigns and choosing the most suitable advert. It's important to understand that Specific Media can only create these profiles and display ads to you when you visit an ad-funded website, or nominated publisher partner which we work with.. In the majority of cases, the website you view will not charge you, but is being funded by the ads that you view. The more effective the advertising on a site, the more money it can generate from fewer ads – reducing the clutter and invasiveness of the advertising on their websites. Specific Media feel that by creating only anonymous profiles we can offer increased performance to our advertisers and enhanced revenues for our websites, as well as an improved online experience for you.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau), which is a trade association for the internet marketing industry, define personally identifiable information as 'information that can be traced back to a specific user and provide personal information such as name, address, phone number, etc'. In other words, it's information about you that can identify you as a person rather than an anonymous profile. All our profiles are anonymous, and relate to your computer rather than the user. For us, they are nothing more than a number with which we associate interests and/or an estimated or inferred demographic profile. Specific Media never attempt to establish any link between the anonymous user profiles we create and personally identifiable information.

What data we collect

Cookie Information

Cookies provide a form of history of user activity by enabling us to understand:

• The URLs (or website address) of web pages which have been viewed
• The date and time of visit to a web page
• Whether the user has clicked on an advert of one of our Advertisers, visited their website, or undertaken a transaction with them.

Session Information

This information can be used for targeting and is stored entirely anonymously for statistical purposes

• IP (Internet Protocol) addresses
  Every device connected to the Internet has an IP address. This cannot be traced to an individual user but can be used for geographic targeting and statistical measurements. An example of an IP address is a number such as 172.16.254.1
• Browser type e.g. Are you using Microsoft Explorer or Apple’s Safari
• Computer Operating System e.g. Are you using Windows Vista
  or Apple OS



Cookies




Cookies are small text files that are stored within a folder on your computer and are used only by your internet browser. They are not programmes or applications – they are merely a marker of our previous contact with you. They take up a tiny amount of space on your computer (less than a regular webpage without images does) and can be used to uniquely, but anonymously, identify your computer. Most websites use cookies to identify users and improve the user experience. The cookies Specific Media use are technically the same. The Specific Media cookie does not harm your computer in any way or provide us with any information about your identity. A certain group of so-called spyware or adware software security packages classify the Specific Media cookie as spyware or adware. This is absolutely not the case. The general definition of spyware/adware is that of a software package installed on your computer for purposes of monitoring all your internet or general computer activity. We do not now and never have used such methods and the classification is incorrect. We do not install software of any kind on your computer and have no ability to monitor or track your general computer or overall internet usage. Cookies can be easily avoided by opting out from them, or adjusting your browser settings (see below).

Opting Out




If you prefer not to have online advertising tailored to a behavioural profile, you may opt out at any time by one of the following methods:

• Opt out of Specific Media’s behavioural targeting cookie by clicking the button below. Please note that if you delete your cookies, change browsers, or use a different computer, you will need to opt out again.
  
  
• Opt out of behavioural targeting from all approved networks by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp or the Internet Advertising Bureau at http://youronlinechoices.co.uk. This uses a special kind of cookie which blocks the use of behavioural targeting. Please note that as with any cookie, if you delete your cookies, change browsers, or use a different computer, you will need to opt out again.
• Disable cookies in your browser (typically under Tools-Options-Privacy, but this varies between browser types and versions). Please note that cookies are used for a variety of reasons, not just targeting advertising, so this may adversely impact your online experience.

It should also be noted that opting out does not mean you will not see advertisements online, but these advertisements will not be targeted based on your online behaviour from us as an individual vendor.

Correspondence




If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence and we may collect your email address. This relates to this correspondence only – and is not part of our core online business.

Children's Privacy




Specific Media is very sensitive to the issue of children's privacy and employs a zero-tolerance approach to advertising to children. Specific Media's websites, products, and services are never developed for, nor directed at, children. Specific Media do not employ or offer targeting towards children under the age of 13. If you believe your child has provided Specific Media with personally identifiable data, or registered at one of Specific Media's websites, and you would like to have the data removed, please contact us.

Sale of Assets




In the event that another company acquires all or substantially all of the assets related to the business, we reserve the right to include any or all stored information among the assets transferred to the acquiring company.

Changes to Privacy Policy




This privacy policy is subject to change without notice. We may change our policy at any time by posting a new version of it on our website.

Effective Date




The privacy policy was last revised on 4th September, 2009.

Questions and Comments




Questions, comments or complaints about your privacy policy should be directed to ukfeedback@specificmedia.com or mailed to Privacy Officer, Specific Media, 26-30 Strutton Ground, London SW1P 2HR.

Compliance


Specific Media are accredited signatories to the UK Internet Advertising Bureau’s Good Practice Principles for Advertising. For more information, please refer to http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/behaviouraladvertisinggoodpractice.html.

IN THE NEWS