Target Practice: An Advertisement for Behavioral-Advertising Backlash

Get ready for a massive backlash against behavioral advertising, the push to target consumers across the Web based on their cookie data. I recently wrote about Expedia's foray into selling cookie data to third parties in the U.S.

The Travolution Blog, too, wonders about the advent of "Big Brother 2.0."

Now, it turns out, the European Union is slated to investigate online advertising practices against the backdrop of many people expressing outrage that consumers' privacy rights are being bashed in the latest targetting practices.

The Shearwater Blog, meanwhile, is reserving judgment on some of the particular advertising practices that triggered the EU's focus.

The EU authorities appear to be ahead of the game in these privacy matters as compared to their U.S. counterparts.

Or maybe not.

The Guardian reported that new EC regulations require Internet Service Providers to keep certain records of consumers' e-mails and Web-based phone calls.

I wonder if the EC is going to investigate itself on this privacy issue, as well.

At any rate, I believe we'll be hearing a lot more about online privacy issues in the U.S. in the coming months and years as they relate to travel e-commerce and the online retail industry in general.

In the U.S., Google recently began a behavioral advertising program, but it doesn't go as far as Expedia's PassportAds program in that Google does not sell consumers' cookie data to airlines, hotels or any other third parties.

But, it is only a matter of time before this behavioral trend gains more traction unless a groundswell labels it as misbehavior.

The Kayak Style and Other Mumbo Jumbo

Sockless Steve Hafner, the Kayak co-founder and CEO, can be brash, insightful and a laugh riot. At the recent TravelCom conference in Atlanta, for instance, he said metasearch is a lousy business because of its thin margins, that Kayak's TravelPost hotel-review business had an even worse business proposition, and that gaining global traffic and scale is the whole ballgame.

"Any donkey can build a metasearch site," Hafner said.

One can debate the pros and cons of Hafner's style.

But, I am definitely a fan of the Kayak.com website's style.

Consider that its privacy policy and terms of use are listed under the heading, Mumbo Jumbo.

On a Kayak Blog post about the launch of a Kayak iPhone app, Kayak writes: "That’s the most important part of this post. We have an iPhone app, if you have an iPhone and you travel, you should download it. The rest of this article is the story of how we made the iPhone app. If you are not a software developer, the intense boredom rays emitted from the information herein is likely to melt your temporal lobe. You’ll wake up in two or three hours with a face full of keyboard and a keyboard full of drool."

And, what really inspired me to write my post about the Kayak style is the site's description of its team. Kayak is known for the filters it offers consumers, giving them the ability to select or deselect individual airlines, airports and layover durations etc.

And, the page depicting Team-Kayak.com also has its filters. Among other choices, you can filter in and out the Nerds and the Capitalists among the leadership team.

Looks like the team is bereft of Nerds because no team members showed up using that filter.

However, if you select Capitalist, then the pics and titles of Keith Melnick, executive vice president of business development, and Hafner are displayed.

Well, let's hope that Hafner and Melnick and chief of geekdom Paul English can build up those global volumes that they've been working on.

Otherwise, Hafner's Capitalist status would be in jeopardy.

Well, probably not, but ...

Anyway, the site's verbiage is irreverent and refreshing. In that regard, I like Kayak's style.

And, incidentally, for those companies just starting to delve into social media, I think it is this sort of style that is the most compelling in a bunch of situations.

Continental, Houston Astros' Airline, Hits Foul Ball with HGH-Releaser Ad

Continental, the official airline of the Houston Astros baseball team, hits a foul ball, in my opinion, with a print advertisement in its in-flight magazine topped with the headline: "Grow Young with HGH."

Human Growth Hormone, after all, is banned in Major League Baseball and condemned by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.

I saw the ad yesterday when I flew Continental home to New Jersey from the TravelCom conference in Atlanta.

The advertisement, from BIEHealth.US, is not for synthetic HGH, but for GHR (Growth Hormone Releaser), which is said to be a natural supplement that prods "your pituitary to secrete extra HGH and then accentuate them to full potential with a proper diet and HGH-releasing exercises," according to the website.

Some of these anti-aging products, with their hyperbolic claims, have been condemned by the Federal Trade Commission, although I couldn't find a specific complaint about GHR.

Still, the ad in Continental's in-flight magazine refers to GHR as "the Reverse Aging Miracle" and goes on to say how HGH reverses hemorrhoids, arthritis and angina.

Wow, if only all those professional baseball players, believed to be weaned from steroids and possibly taking HGH, would opt for this natural HGH-releaser instead and perform workouts heavy on the "HGH-releasing exercises."

We'd have a whole new meaning for "The Natural."

C'mon Continental. You are a damn good airline. You are sending the wrong message and you are better than this.

UPDATE: As a commentator below pointed out, Continental doesn't publish its in-flight magazine. It is published by The Pohly Company.

However, Continental is responsible for its own brand, and associating the Continental brand with an HGH-like "natural" supplement, is a screwball move.

Orbitz May Be Close to Booking-Fee Decision

Orbitz Worldwide President and CEO Barney Harford told participants at the TravelCom conference in Atlanta yesterday that the company didn't want to be rushed into a decision about booking fees and was still evaluating the situation. "Stay tuned," Harford said.

I'm hearing from a non-Orbitz insider that some kind of Orbitz announcement, in the wake of Expedia and Travelocity killing booking fees on flights, had been imminent yesterday, but didn't materialize.

Orbitz's fence-sitting and condundrum is so pronounced, I'm told, that in its deal-making overtures with at least one metasearch company, Orbitz's proposals include one with booking fees and one without.

What would it mean if it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reorganized, and dropped booking fees? That could be one radical option being mulled, although I have no idea how seriously that might be being vetted. That wouldn't be a very pleasant option as far as building consumer trust, but Orbitz, reliant on the booking fees, is in a very tight spot.

Orbitz is loaded down with debt, dependent on booking fees, and locked into disadvantageous agreements with Big Brother Travelport.

There has even been some speculation about some kind of Orbitz-Kayak combination, which doesn't make much sense to me.

Meanwhile, Orbitz, the exclusive online travel agency participating in Kayak, would be hard-pressed to compensate Kayak, which gets a chunk of revenue from Orbitz, if Orbitz decides to toss its booking fees.

Kayak CEO Steve Hafner indeed predicts that Orbitz has no choice but to drop booking fees.

I think we will be hearing something on this front soon.

No rush, Barney, but we are awaiting your next move.

Will Airline Fees Pinch Business Travelers?

Joe Sharkey wrote an interesting story in yesterday's New York Times, speculating that frequent flyers with lower levels of elite status may see some of their perks evaporate as airlines try to merchandise everything bolted and not bolted-down on the plane.

If these road warriors get priority boarding or exit-row seating as part of their elite perks for free, will the airlines ditch the freebies they give business travelers in favor of a non-elite traveler who may want to pay $15 or $20 for the premier seat, Sharkey wonders.

He even speculates that some of these new pay-as-you-go ancillary products, as they are known, may go up for auction, with the exit row seats going to the highest bidders.

Will we see a sort of Priceline system for priority boarding, premier seats and lounge access?

In that regard, I like a tweet I saw this morning written by Gregg Brockway, CEO of TripIt, from the TravelCom conference in Atlanta. He tweeted: "Enjoying #TravelCom. The upstarts generally seem happy and the establishment pained. Creative destruction at work?"

Brockway wasn't referring to airline merchandising, but I like the "creative destruction" reference.

In the next few years, airlines' souped-up merchandising efforts are going to bring a lot of disruption, altering the way travel is bought and sold on the Web and offline, too, for business travelers and just plain folks.