epic media group FTC bars advertising firm from sniffing browser histories

[Guest LilBambi]

FTC bars advertising firm from sniffing browser histories - Computerworld

 

 

Epic Marketplace illegally gathered information from millions of Web users, including information about medical and financial issues such as fertility, incontinence, debt relief and personal bankruptcy, the FTC alleged.

 

FTC bars Epic Marketplace from sniffing through web users' history - the Inquirer

 

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC) has barred online marketeer Epic Marketplace from rifling through web users' history to serve targeted adverts.

 

Epic Marketplace would put adverts in front of web users that were tailored based on looking through their web history, known in the business as online behavioural advertising. Now the firm has admitted FTC claims that it used "history sniffing" and was illegally gathering data and has been barred from repeating its actions.

 

A little background on Epic Marketplace

 

Epic Media Group Announces Epic Marketplace as Consolidated Umbrella Brand for Integrated Social, Mobile and Display Advertising - PR Newswire

 

One year following Epic's acquisition of Traffic Marketplace, brand is discontinued; new Epic Marketplace operates EpicSocial, EpicMobile, and EpicDisplay brands delivering a full spectrum of digital marketing services via a common audience optimization platform

 

What Happened To Epic Media Group? See Kinetic Social - adexchanger (this was from May 2012) - Be sure to check out the links in the article.

 

As you may recall, Epic was accused of “History Sniffing” practices in July of 2011 to which it defended itself on its own blog at that time. The NAI said in a November 2011 blog post that a “legacy advertising system” from Epic’s Traffic Marketplace unit was to blame for the “history sniffing” practice. Epic Advertising had bought Connexus, which owned ad network Traffic Marketplace, in 2010. The combined company became Epic Media Group thereafter, with Traffic Marketplace renamed Epic Marketplace – which was right before the “history sniffing” blow-up. Follow me?

 

 

Also it looks like they changed their website from epicadvertising.com to epicmarketplace.com based on the article above and the current LinkedIn info here. Hmmm...

Edited December 6, 2012 by LilBambi