Phil Leggiere from the Behavioral Insider released a story yesterday about TRUSTe’s recent consumer survey on behavioral targeting. We spoke at length on friday and he uses quotes from our conversation throughout the article. It’s a good piece.

Personal highlights:

O’ Malley suggests that familiarity with the concept of behavioral targeting, rather than breeding contempt, is fostering at least a modicum less suspicion, the more BT comes out of the shadows.

But to take the comfort level further, requires not only that marketers take their behavioral initiatives out of the shadows but become radically more proactive in providing true transparency and dialogue, he suggests.

“It’s no longer enough just to have a ‘privacy statement’ up somewhere on your Web site,” he says. ” If they look to increase comfort among a majority of consumers. publishers must consciously build transparency into the essence of the user experience. Web sites that do that, not as a gimmick or an extraneous add-on, will be able to improve not only relevance but consumer engagement and trust as well. But it must be looked at not as an onerous obligation to be conformed with, but as a real opportunity.”

It’s too early to isolate particular solutions as the answer, O’ Malley says, but the good news is, there is some real innovation going on. “I’d point to sites that invite consumers to learn more about exactly why particular ads were targeted to them and why, and why they’re seeing Ad A rather than something else,” he says. “This kind of proactivity communicates very clearly that the publisher has nothing to hide and there are no hidden agendas.”