181 of ComScore's Top 200 Advertisers Have Not Adopted Digital Privacy Code

The ad industry's push to adopt more stringent codes around how it targets advertising to people online has been gaining wider acceptance. A coalition of trade groups announced that 100 companies have agreed to comply with a program to self-regulate their digital tracking practices. The roster of participating companies include major online advertisers AT&T, Verizon, Dell and Bank of America, as well as most of the major ad networks, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and ValueClick. Ad companies Cobalt, MiG and Omnicom Group are also listed as taking part in the effort. Contradicting earlier reports that only a small number of advertisers had signed on, the coalition claimed that adoption of the program was increasing every month. So far, the DAA says 2 trillion ads have featured the opt-out icon since the program launched last November, based on reporting from the three vendors providing the icon, Evidon, Truste and DoubleVerify. But that number doesn't correlate with ComScore's figures, which say that only 1.99 trillion ads were served online in U.S. during the same period.

Despite the increased adoption of the icon, a significant portion of the largest advertisers have not yet signed into the program. Of the top 200 advertisers as measured by ComScore, 181 have not taken part in the industry effort, including the second largest online advertiser, Experien Interactive, which markets sites such as Free Credit Report and Price Grabber. Other big advertisers currently not participating include Progressive, Groupon, Netflix and Weight Watchers. It's not clear, however, how actively engaged these companies are in behavioral targeting.