The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) has released new a new Mobile Guidance for applying its Self-Regulatory Principles currently enforced on the web to mobile environments, in order to provide consumers with easily accessed privacy controls in this increasingly used medium. The DAA administers the AdChoices icon and the self-regulatory program for online behavioral advertising. AAF is a participating association of the DAA and sits on its board of directors.

The DAA Mobile Guidance advises advertisers, agencies, media, and technology companies how to provide consumers the ability to see and exercise control over the use of cross-app, personal directory, and precise location data in mobile apps. This enforceable guidance reflects the reality that companies and brands engage with their customers on a variety of platforms, including mobile, and explains how the DAA’s program applies consistently across channels to certain data practices that may occur on mobile or other devices. A key provided benefit is enhanced consumer transparency for the collection of data across different mobile apps.

The guidance builds on the 2010 Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising and its 2012 Principles for Multi-site Data, which are the basis for the digital ad industry’s successful Advertising Option Icon initiative. This self-regulatory program – the largest and most comprehensive in the interactive advertising industry – is responsible for the ubiquitous Advertising Option Icon that is served on trillions of advertising impressions a year, signaling to consumers that various forms of online data are being collected and used to deliver them advertising tailored to their interests, and offering them a centralized system to opt out of the use of that data.

The DAA consumer notice and choice program has been praised by the Obama Administration, the Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission. The DAA’s mobile guidance released today aims to offer businesses policies and consumers assurances that the same notice and control consumers have in desktop Internet advertising environments will apply in the more complex, evolving world of the mobile Internet.

“The advertising industry has long had the gold standard for industry self-regulation,” said AAF President James Edmund Datri. “This move into the mobile environment demonstrates our commitment, once again, to consumer trust and protection. Technologies and communications methods may change, but our promise to treat our customers in a fair and ethical way never will.”