Construction firms to mount the scaffold?

The information commissioner Richard Thomas has come down like a ton of bricks on a group of British builders who allegedly bought secret personal data about potential employees.

Construction companies Balfour Beatty, Sir Robert MacAlpine, Laing O'Rourke and Costain are among those alleged to have bought data about workers' trade union activities from one Kerr, Ian, operator of the shadowy-named "Consultancy Association".

Kerr has apparently spent 15 years amassing an "extensive intelligence database" of thousands of construction workers with details of union activities stretching back to the 1980s. Samples of comments on these workers include: "Poor timekeeper, will cause trouble, strong TU [trade union]"; "Sleeper, should be watched"; and, simply, "Do not touch!".

Workers could not challenge inaccurate information because the information was held without their knowledge or consent.

Richard Thomas says that more than 40 construction companies paid Kerr a retainer of £3,000 a year for his "consultancy services", with a further fixed fee for each worker they wanted checked.

The good news is that officials from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) raided Kerr's office and removed the entire contents of the database, as well as invoices - up to a value of £7,500 - from companies in the construction business.

Steve Acheson, an electrician from somewhere north of Watford, believes he was one of the workers on the database, and that this was behind the fact that he's only had 36 weeks' employment in the past nine years. "It affects your character and demeanour," he said. "I'm hoping that because of this brilliant success I'll be able to get my family life back and it will open the doors for me and others to get back to work."

Of course, this is all still sub judice, but the commissioner will be bringing a prosecution against Kerr. We'll keep you posted.

Data Grub is sure that Mr Kerr will be found innocent, because we cannot believe that anyone would be capable of such repugnantly unethical behaviour as robbing people of their livelihoods for personal profit.

(We should point out that some of the construction firms, including Laing O'Rourke and Morgan Est, say that they "inherited" payments to Kerr after they had bought up other constuction companies, and have since ceased paying him. Data Grub.)

IAB's Guide To Good Behaviour

We're pleased to see that the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the trade body for online advertisers, has finally launched its Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising.

Drawn up in collaboration with companies like Google, Phorm and NebuAd, the IAB's best practice guide is, remarkably, the first set of self-regulatory guidelines to set good practice for companies that use users' online browsing behaviour to target ads that are relevant to individual users' interests.

An accompanying website, http://www.youronlinechoices.co.uk/, will help consumers to understand what online behavioural advertising does and (crucially) doesn't do.

The core of the Principles is formed by three commitments: Notice, where companies that collect online data must inform users that data is being collected; Choice, which says that companies must provide an opt-out; and Education, whereby they must let consumers know exactly how the information is being used and how they can opt out.

And not before time, think we. The debate surrounding online behavioural advertising has for too long been dominated by single-issue campaigners relying on hearsay, misrepresentation and misinformation to argue that behavioural targeting infringes individuals' online privacy.

That's not to say that some developments (not least BT's secret and most-probably illegal trials of Phorm's Webwise technology without users' knowledge or consent) haven't done real damage to the industry in the eyes of the general public.

That's why we welcome the IAB's Good Practice Principles which, as well as advising on best practice approaches to online behavioural targeting, provide consumers with the information they need to make an informed decision about whether they want to take part in any new service.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) have voiced their support, saying that 'a joined-up approach to promoting transparency, choice and education makes good sense.'

Getting the thumbs up from the ICO, who know their stuff, is one thing; changing the public's perception of online behavioural targeting is quite another, especially given the bad press that it's garnered over the last couple of years. Whether or not it succeeds in its aim of educating the public about behavioural targeting, the code of conduct is certainly a step in the right direction for the industry.

Taken along with another piece of recent news, we could be seeing something of a fightback from the targeted ad industry. Last week, Phorm unleashed its lawyers on Which?, which had published a press release highlighting opposition to their service. Nothing very surprising there, except that following the legal intervention, Which? immediately pulled the offending release from its website (though not before the story had been covered in several publications). It seems that some of the information in the release was inaccurate enough to be defamatory; Which? is now "working with Phorm" to correct the release.

If consumer champions and all-round experts Which? can't get its facts right, what hope for your average Internet user? That's one reason, at least, to welcome the IAB's new code of practice.