OTTAWA – Bell Canada told a Senate committee Wednesday that its new customer information collection practices and its targeted advertising program comply with current privacy laws. Its policy strikes an appropriate balance between privacy and business needs and innovation, argued Mirko Bibic, executive VP and chief legal and regulatory officer in testimony.
In a presentation to the Senate Standing Committee on Transportation and Communications, Bibic explained how the company’s relevant advertising program works. First Bell doesn’t provide any subscriber information to third parties. Rather, the advertisers come to Bell and fill out a form on an online portal indicating the types of customers they want to target. Then Bell delivers those ads to websites with which the advertiser has purchased space.
“That’s what happens and that’s all the advertiser and the websites get. They tell us who their target profile is and then we deliver relevant ads to Bell Mobility users who have not opted out of the program and who fit this profile,” said Bibic. “We do not disclose any users’ personal information or Internet usage patterns. That never leaves Bell and the systems are highly secured.”
Targeted mobile advertising is just an extension of similar activities taking place in the wired Internet. Bell isn’t the first company to launch this type of program. Others are doing this around the world (most web companies have been doing this since their launch) and sometimes are using much more sensitive information. Just as Google and Facebook are now active in the mobile advertising space, so too do the telecommunications want to be. Targeted ads provide a benefit not only to the web sites and the advertisers but also to the wireless carriers trying to make money off their network investments.
There is value to the advertiser because “there is an enhanced ability to more effectively reach a target market. And for Bell Mobility, we improve our ability to monetize our network platform and to start competing with the likes of Google and Facebook who have global scale and billions of users throughout the world and also deliver targeted advertising,” said Bibic.
Conservative Senator Don Plett (Landmark – Manitoba) wondered why Bell didn’t implement an opt in program. Under the Bell initiative, customers have to opt out of the program or they are automatically enrolled in it.
Bibic said there are a number of elements to consider on this point. Since the customer information is aggregated and non-sensitive then under current privacy law, an opt out program is okay. But if the information used were to be very sensitive like geolocation, then opt in is the requirement under the law, he added.
“So what we’re doing here with our program with opt out is we’re respecting privacy while allowing us to leverage in an efficient and effective way our networks.” – Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada
“So what we’re doing here with our program with opt out is we’re respecting privacy while allowing us to leverage in an efficient and effective way our networks. What we’re trying to do is compete with the companies in terms of targeted advertising,” said Bibic.
Senator Michael MacDonald (Conservative from Cape Breton – Nova Scotia) noted in his question that Bell is doing this to make money and this shouldn’t be forgotten in the debate. He asked whether Bell ever considered paying its customers for access to their personal information just as AT&T had previously done in Texas. There, AT&T offered customers a lower monthly bill in exchange for giving the company access to personal cell phone information.
Bibic acknowledged that the company is out to make a profit. He added that there are many ways to provide value to the customer.
“Yes, we seek to monetize our networks because we invest literally billions every single year in our networks. BCE’s capital budget on a yearly basis is over $3.5 billion. This is $3.5 billion that goes into networks, goes into building fibre optic internet. You make investments like that, you take a big risk,” he said, “but we can only continue to do that if we generate a return on those investments.”
