Consumers just don’t want to be tracked
This gallup poll show that a majority of consumers would rather just not be tracked. But it’s not the tracking that bothers them, it is the potential for bad behavior by the trackers. There is no trust. Apparently, a self-regulating industry hasn’t convinced consumers of its ability to self regulate.
What the FTC Proposal Means to You, the Consumer
As many of you probably know by now, the first of the two promised government reports on consumer privacy is out. This one, prepared by the FTC, aims its message directly at industry but has its eye set on protecting the consumer’s interests. The other report, due shortly from the commerce department, will most likely be aligned more towards protecting the interests of industry.
The FTC report is 122 pages, mostly filled with details and background. So what did the FTC say? In summary, three things:
- Companies should be more privacy-conscious throughout their operations
- It should be easier for consumers to understand and exercise their privacy rights
- There should be greater transparency in how companies collect, use and make your personal information available.
Behavioral Tracking or Voodoo?
The idea that watching which sites you visit allows someone to predict your purchasing behavior is a little like Voodoo. And each different behavioral tracking advertising vendor claims to have cracked the art and found the magic voodoo juju. But have they? I don’t think so.
Many advertisers believe that if they stick a needle in your leg (or set a browser cookie… hey, it’s a metaphor ok?) while you are shopping for a new cookbook, that tells them you want a cookbook and so they’ll nag you and nag you as you surf around the web trying to get you to go back to that site to buy more cookbooks. This is called re-targeting. But re-targeting almost never works. Especially when a particular re-targeter spans a large part of the web and you are hounded for cookbooks on every site you visit, many times with 2 or 3 ads per page. What it usually causes is resentment, not a conciliatory action that results in a purchase.
