The icon will be used in online ads that go to users based on demographics.

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A mockup of an ad that includes the Power-I icon.

Trying to ward off regulators, the advertising industry has agreed on a standard icon — a little “i” — that it will add to most online ads that use demographics and behavioral data to tell consumers what is happening.

Jules Polonetsky, the co-chairman and director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an advocacy group that helped create the symbol, compared it to the triangle made up of three arrows that tells consumers that something is recyclable.

From this summer in the US, people will be able to tell more about how their behaviour information is being used by media and advertisers to target them by clicking on a little "i" in the corner of display ads.

My sense is that the "i" symbol will simultaneously assuage fears and broaden the debate(s) around online privacy. While many will be happier about the openness of advertisers, for the mainstream user unaware that their clickstream, social graph and search history may informing the ads they see it will represent a new and troubling aspect of web use. Expect in the short term for ad-blocking apps and privacy opt-outs to become more popular.

In the longer term though, it will all be for the best.

Ultimately a better informed, more digitally literate society will make choices about how privacy and relationship between citizens, corporations and government will work. Better that literacy raises sooner so that the dominant voices in debates that may shape legislation are not just those of the advertising and media industries. The implications for our web future are too important for that to be the case.

Marks and Spencer – a UK-based retailer that sources from factories and farmers around the world - has been on a journey: moving beyond old-style philanthropy and corporate social responsibility, towards the long term goal of building a sustainable business – in the full commercial, social and environmental sense of the term. We believe that business can drive development and our own experience has demonstrated the powerful business case behind doing this.

But why does this matter for us?

Great article about how and why M&S's Plan-A initiative is about more than CSR, and is helping shape the future of the business. Comes replete with a top "how to" tips from the company's head of sustainability.

Last Friday I presented at the NMAlive event* on Online Engagement Demysitified event, running with the hopeful title “How Engagement Measurement Will Change the World” (see slides above).

As ever, it was a good opportunity to revisit the theme of engagement measurement and think about how we talk about it at iCrossing.

We’ve effectively spent the last four years looking at how you quantify and understand the concept of engagement. It’s only with evidence and actionable analysis that the idea of connected brands, organisations in touch and in dialogue with with their customers and stakeholders online becomes real.

This conference really got me thinking. This is the first of a few posts on the subject of engagement, I reckon...