Do Not Track List Won't Make Advertisers Happy
from the resistance-is-futile dept
Just as Facebook is looking to launch its own behavioral advertising network, AOL and some privacy groups are pitching the idea of a "Do Not Track" list that would effectively let people opt-out of behavioral advertising tracking. It's a challenging issue to deal with. Advertisers, obviously, want more data and information about who is viewing their ads, as well as having the ability to better target those ads. At the same time, the theory is that people are much more receptive to highly targeted, relevant ads. The problem, though, is that many internet surfers have no idea how much information they're handing over and how it's being used (and many would argue that the more relevant ads aren't actually appearing). If they knew how much data was being collected, however, many would probably be quite upset. The purpose of the Do Not Track list would be to give them back some control. Advertisers, of course, won't like this idea at all, as they often feel it's their divine right to have as much information as possible. They'll also complain that without this data, advertisements will actually be less relevant and less useful -- which might actually be true. In the end, though, it seems like while a "Do Not Track" may get lots of publicity, but how many people will actually sign up? Certainly I'd expect techies who are more concerned about this kind of thing to sign up -- but the average consumer? Unlike the "Do Not Call" list, most people don't even realize that they're being tracked, and so are much less likely to have the incentive to opt out of being tracked.
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Filed Under: advertising, behavioral targeting, do not track
Companies: aol
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Hit the Target
If the advertisers are not careful, they will wind up in Washington defending why their system is helpful for the consumer. The "do not track" registry could well become the next privacy hot topic, regardless that the consumers are oblivious to the whole situation.
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the real truth of the matter
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Just Don't Use The Damn Web
No one can tell you what code to NOT put on your private site - as long as it is not malware or trojans or viruses.
In other words, your site is your property, you can add whatever code you wish to ad.
People are entering it out of their own self interest - either for news, resources, knowledge or entertainment.
In an extreme case - if this does get to court - the worst possible scenario would be to have site owners put an 'IP being tracked for advertising relevancy with cookies' disclaimer on some high profile sites that share info.
But the truly concerned, already know now to delete cookies or use proxies if they MUST visit.
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You'd need a server system equivalent to the great firewall of china to begin making a dent in this "problem."
Simply in pure numbers of participants and logistics; the cost of putting such in place would be enormous, and it would merely be another waste of our tax dollars for little or no effective return on said investment.
In addition to the above, how can one realistically target/not target specific persons when your only real identifier is ip address--which for most of us varies greatly from one logon to the next.
If you don't want ads, download firefox and learn to concisely use the adblock extension.
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Re: the real truth of the matter
When they start covering things up, I don't like them. But I don't mind most advertising systems.
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do not track list
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Re: won't happen
Nope, just an agreement by advertisers to honor a "do not track" cookie that you can get from a known reliable site (say, donottrack.gov).
The real difference between this and 'do not call' is geography. No one outside the US (or outside countries with a treaty covering this) is going to pay any attention to a law, a list, or a cookie.
And soon enough, that would be... everybody. Loophole!
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A fine balance
Some people would prefer advertisers only know what types of books they are into.
And there are still others that don't want advertisers to even know they read books.
The fact that people are divided that way (and possibly more) is only going to lead to legal war between advertisers, developers of ad blocking software, and lawyers with internet users having no say in the matter but having to shoulder the burden of the outcomes. Sorry for the rant but my point is that as long there are different perceptions of when data collection gets too close for comfort any "Do Not _____" list will be almost useless.
And like comment #8 says about loopholes is a valid point to note. I'll bet there are advertisers out there already brainstorming about possible loopholes.
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What of grocery store "savings cards"?
I'm not sure how this data is currently used, but somebody out there knows a lot about our spending habits, even when the Internet is not the shopping platform.
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But ...
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Missing the bigger picture
However, in this era of identity theft, security breaches of customer information, and the need for greater security - there are many advertising/marketing practices that should be severely curtailed.
1. The buying/selling/renting/whatever of customer information should be prohibited.
2. No automatic opt-in. Opt-in must be a voluntary action.
What has been ludicrous, companies claim to value your privacy and claim that they will handle your information in a secure manner, yet they will fight any regulation that proposes to protect the consumer. I guess they figure that despite any financial damage, they can still make more money by treating us as revenue units.
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Targeted Ads?
Use FF and NoScript and watch all those trackers servers scream!
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Re: Targeted Ads?
Targeted ads are ads that are custom to you and what you're into. You're likely to click a link (ad) that has your favorite band in it, rather than a band you don't like.
Gmail has been doing this for awhile, whenever I get an email, the ad at the top of the page is usually something based on the content of the email. Example: A friend and I were discussing the new BlackBerry with the wifi capabilities, and I had an ad on the page for "the newest blackberries".
...sorta like that, except this new method is much more in depth. They track your movements throughout the web and target ads based on sites you frequent.
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Targeted Adds
On several webpages, I have noted that Amazon.com has been able to insert ads targeted to me specifically, even though I am not "technically" logged-in.
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Maybe it's just me....
Hmm maybe because I use firefox and the adblock plus addon. "They" can collect all the data they want. I'll never be affected. I never see any ads.
When my wife and I are both on facebook I'm always surprised to see ads on her pages. We can be at the same site simultaneously and my page is clean, easily readable, no flashing annoying ads, scrolling banners, just the info I want to access.
I wonder if this is a privacy issue or a browser use issue (cough, cough) :)
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Re: do not track list
Have you noticed lately that ads on TV spent a lot more time with the brand icon on screen so you can see it even when you FF on your Tivo/DVR???
Advertisers are clever, after all, many of them have psychology backgrounds ;)
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Re: But ...
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Do not track
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ADBLOCK, NOSCRIPT, FFpopup killer
but I am sure they track me everywhere i go, they may follow me to the bathroom if they want;
what's the matter,use more pseudo, have dynamic IP addresses, that's all
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Targeted Ads
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Re: Re: Targeted Ads?
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Re: Maybe it's just me....
Nice plug though...
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Re: Targeted Ads
Not true, you can use element filtering with NoScript to block literally ANY web content you like. Here's an example:
This is a search for the Nokia 6300 without blocking:
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/7279/notblockediq2.jpg
This is the same search with blocking enabled:
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/6898/noscriptblockedae6.jpg
Whilst I may be tracked, it really is useless as LITERALLY no ads get through my setup.
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Re: Re: Targeted Ads
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Re: Re: Maybe it's just me....
As an added bonus I'm essentially providing bogus data that will mess with their marketing models since the data collection will indicate ad shown and no response. But the lack of response is because I'm not even aware of it's existence.
A double win from my perspective :).
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Re: Re: Re: Maybe it's just me.... further thought
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Maybe it's just me.... further tho
The subject of the article is a "Do Not Track" list not a "Don't Display Ad" list. Seeing or not seeing the ad and the relevancy of the collected data are not the issue here.
It's definitely a privacy debate/issue, not a browser one.
But your point was made: you are a cool Firefox user with Add-ons :)
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Perhaps then the argument should be about the methods, and legality thereof, to gather such information. Is this code legal? Is the user informed of it? Did they consent to this code being run? Is anyone really concerned with this not running applications similar to the one below?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1559
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Re: Re: do not track list
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Re: Just Don't Use The Damn Web
The problem is that they are putting code on YOUR and MY COMPUTERS - not that it's on the web page.
Nobody has the right to put stuff on my hard drive - including Microsoft - without asking my permission. Unfortunately we act like sheep and allow it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maybe it's just me.... further
However, I'll try to make the point I've been making about tracking one more time. Tracking is useless. It has no value. It does not track to track someone's tracks. Someone somewhere is making a lot of $ selling snakeoil to advertisers.
This is fine by me. Someone gets some numbers that are meaningless and I go about my daily life completely unaffected. I wonder if the square root of -1 means I like cotton candy?
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Re: Just Don't Use The Damn Web
You've got a lot to learn. There are all kinds of thing you can't do even on your own property. Having your own property isn't exactly like having your own country if that's what you're thinking. You are still subject to laws. If laws are passed that say you can't track people on your website, then doing so will be illegal. Whether you like it or not.
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Re: Missing the bigger picture
OK.
1. The buying/selling/renting/whatever of customer information should be prohibited.
I hate to tell you this but "The buying/selling/renting/whatever of customer information" is a form of tracking. Make up your mind.
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Re: Maybe it's just me....
Ahh, I see. Because you only care about yourself.
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Do Not Stalk
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Of course, blocking images from sites like photobucket and imageshack is dumb, as blogs and forum postings tend to use these for image hosting; legitimate, visible content I won't block. Ads and especially tracking gifs/scripts can go though.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
Or his ISP or his employer (if at work) or anyone else with access to his network traffic. He really doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.
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Even this page for example has 5 different domains in action. Not all are tracking data obviously, some would be inputting, but the effect remains the same.
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