Advertising and marketing plays a fundamental economic role in the Internet by funding much of the information, community and communication services that are available to Web Users, very often not requiring payment. The advertising model has made Internet content and services available to billions of people around the world – for free. The business model of relying on advertising revenue to fund Websites has meant that vast amounts of information on the Internet has been fully accessible to people of all ages and income levels. The trend has been to tear down economic barriers to content, which is possible only because the primary source of revenue for most content providers’ online operations is an advertising, rather than a subscription, model.
One element of online advertising is Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) which is sometimes also known as Interest Based Advertising.
OBA delivers advertisements to the users of an Internet-enabled device based on Web browsing activity or ‘behaviour’ of that device. An OBA cookie on the device may note the subject matter of searches or visited Web pages and allows the device to be assigned to one or more predefined interest categories using a unique number. Relevant advertising is then delivered to that device according to the interest category associated to that device.
You can download the Australian OBA Best Practice Guidelines below.
