Re: [projectvrm] The marketing/cybercrime symbiosis

[Katherine Warman Kern < >]

Welcome to the fold Linda – the slings and arrows are well intentioned “/

Katherine Kern

COMRADITY Creative Professional Community 

The COMRADITY Journal

From: Linda Zimmer < "> >
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 11:02 AM
To: < "> >
Cc: Katherine Kern < "> >, "T.Rob" < "> >, Don Marti < "> >
Subject: Re: [projectvrm] The marketing/cybercrime symbiosis

This is my first post here. I'm a marketer, so I'm writing this with my head ducked and covered, but I need to risk jumping in to assure you some marketers (increasing in number) are acutely aware of marketing as a Big Problem.   I've been lurking around ProjectVRM for a long time, this list for a few months.  I'm listening and soaking up the smarts and solutions you all are working on and deeply thinking about how we marketers affect change.  

In my long experience, "the industry" i.e., the professional organizations, are laggers.  They aren't the leaders who shape marketers' practices, They respond to what members are doing or seeing or become concerned about.  They are "the defenders."  It is the big brands and more often the visible social media marketing influencers (some of whom are big brands CMOs) who drive the change - or at least the awareness of trends.  Everyone else rushes to follow - read FOLO.   

These are also the people who are likely to experiment and report out to the rest of the industry about their successes (because that visibility drives their own interests - sorry if that sounds cynical).  Thus, I'm hugely heartened to see the brands involved with Meeco, Respect Networks, etc. They are the ones who will influence marketing's thinking - and thus the advocacy activities of the IAB, DMA, etc.

While I'm no Big Visible Influencer, I'm good at marketing and hard working - and "marketing" this to my colleagues is becoming an obsession for me.

Take heart.  You are moving the needle.

Linda Zimmer

 

On Sep 17, 2014, at 7:19 AM, Don Marti wrote:

The marketing industry as a whole can never address
the integrity issue, because there's always someone
who's willing to be a little creepier, a little
closer to the edge.  The question is how many of the
high-reputation brand advertisers will split off from
the bottom-feeders.

A little history... We had a good tool against email
spam: a broad "private right of action"
in state antispam laws such as Washington's CEMA (
http://www.dwt.com/advisories/9th_Circuit_Deals_Blow_to_Professional_CANSPAM_Complaint_Mills_08_10_2009/
).  The federal CAN-SPAM law, backed by the Direct
Marketing Association, pre-empted state antispam laws
and we lost private right of action.

Yes, the DMA sided with spammers over its own members
who send legit, opt-in marketing email.

The same thing is happening now with the IAB and the
creepy ads.  Existing organizations such as the DMA
and IAB have been captured by the intermediaries who
sit between advertisers and content creators.

There's a growing recognition from both "ends" that
the "middle" isn't working.  The question is how to
connect dissatisfied web publishers to dissatisfied
brand advertisers without the creepy stuff in the
middle.  Doc covers the problem here:

 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2014/09/16/giving-respect-to-brand-advertising/

Don



begin Katherine Warman Kern quotation of Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 06:49:33AM -0400:

T.Rob, I wish there were a way to convince the marketing industry to address the integrity issue. The huge volume of both intentionally malicious and unintentionally intrusive marketing makes it more and more difficult and expensive for an advertiser with integrity to stand out.

K-

Katherine Warman Kern

@comradity

On Sep 16, 2014, at 8:01 PM, "T.Rob" < "> > wrote:

Recently I posted to this list a claim that marketing has become the R&D lab for cybercrime.

1.      Users find ways to stay anonymous and block ads.

2.      Marketing devices new adtech to circumvent user controls.

3.      Cybercriminals ride the rails marketing builds.

4.      Rinse, repeat.

I asked whether marketing would ever voluntarily take responsibility for their role and whether there is a line that even Marketing won't cross.  In other words, will Marketing ever say "just because we can doesn't mean we should" and find a business model that does not support cybercrime.  To my surprise, it turns out I'd overlooked some significant activity in this area.  The OTA is saying the same thing, except they are saying it to Congress: http://iopt.us/1r6io96

"According to OTA research, malvertising increased by over 200% in 2013 to over 209,000 incidents, generating over 12.4 billion malicious ad impressions."

" In the absence of policy and traffic quality controls, organized crime has recognized malvertising as the “exploit of choice” because it offers the ability to be anonymous and remain undetected for days."

“Failure to address these threats suggests the needs for legislation not unlike State data breach laws, requiring mandatory notification, data sharing and remediation to those who have been harmed.”

Kind regards,

-- T.Rob

T.Robert Wyatt, Managing partner

IoPT Consulting, LLC

+1 704-443-TROB

https://ioptconsulting.com

https://twitter.com/tdotrob

--
Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
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