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Massachusetts attorney general bars anti-abortion mobile advertising inside women's health clinics

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In 2017, the Massachusetts attorney general's office reached an agreement under which Boston-based Copley Advertising agreed to eschew sending mobile ads to patients visiting Planned Parenthood and other health clinics. In 2015, Copley's geofencing technique used location information from smartphones and other internet-enabled devices to target "abortion-minded" women and send them ads for alternatives to abortion in a campaign it conducted on behalf of a Christian pregnancy counselling and adoption service. The women would continue receiving these ads for up to a month. Copley described the ads as "an exercise of free speech under the First Amendment". The Massachusetts attorney general said that instead the use of geofencing interfered with health privacy even though it is not illegal under the US Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.

http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/04/04/massachusetts-geofencing-ads-settlement
Writer: Zeninjor Enwemeka
Publication: WBUR
 

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