I wrote the following post for an assignment in my Web Analytics certification. We had to answer 2 questions whire are as follow.
Am I willing to give up my “privacy” in order to have easier-to-use websites?
I believe that first party cookies are a brilliant way, to improve our user experience on the web. I’m a big fan of Amazon when I reach the homepage, MY HOMEPAGE, referring me to other books related to those I bought in the past. To answer the question, I’m willing to give up my privacy for a better user experience on websites, which imply only first party cookies. I think everybody here agree with that.
I’m fine with first party cookie, but I do not want a company whom I’m a client, to sell my data to a third-party (even non-personal data). Companies are obliged to let us know and give us the choice of the use they could do of our data because of the Data Law Protection. On Internet, companies actually let us know with the privacy policy page. I read that Swatch.com sells non-personal data to aCerno (company like DoubleClick). Here is a sentence from Swatch Privacy Policy Page:
“We may share non-personal, non-individual statistics or demographic information in aggregate form with our marketing partners, advertisers or other third-parties for research purposes.”
They respect the law because they tell us through that page. Now, I’m asking you… Do you regularly check the privacy policy of websites you’re visiting? I bet less than 1% of Swatch.com visitors are aware that their data are sold to an advertising platform.This topic actually leads to the second question:
Am I willing to give up my “privacy” so that the ads I see on websites are likely to be more relevant to me?
The issue of online privacy goes a lot further than cookies. To illustrate this, I would like to talk about Doubleclick which merger with Google. That is really controversial. Let’s recapitulate to understand:
What does Google do? It tracks all our searches, and stores them per IP address (almost nominative/name/identification information). They also track websites we are visiting through Google Analytics now, as they own the data (check their terms and conditions for Google Analytics, article 8.3 ). FYI, Google has ranked “worst company” for user privacy in 2007(also here). What does Doubleclick do? It serves ads on thousands of websites using their DART system (Dynamic Advertising Reporting & Targeting) through one cookie on almost each computer, with a number assigned to each user/profile. DoubleClick had planned in the past to link user data with data names and identification!! Can you imagine the information on consumers Doubleclick and Google could have after combination of their data? This combination would (will?) make them even more controversial. Three privacy groups had filed a complaint last year regarding those issues.
I believe behavioral marketing have proved to be very effective and companies just want to know AS MUCH AS they can about us now to serve us the most appropriate advertising. Those companies know who we are, more than our own mother. They know what we search for, our interests, our fears, and serve ads related to this in order to target effectively. And those information could almost be with identification. That’s what Google/Doubleclick polemic is about. A poll in January 2006 actually tells that most users are unaware that search engine collect their personally identifiable data. So now, am I willing to give up my privacy for a better advertising on pages I visit? I think I would actually, that’s my CHOICE. The Data Protection Law relies on giving people the choice, the problem is that people just don’t know. I believe that the key here, again, is to visibly empower visitors with the option to opt-out. I’m giving you the option: here is a page where you can opt-out from every third-party cookies from doubleclick-like companies. It also shows you which ad network actually have a cookie on your computer already (I had 11 out of 22). I’m curious to know how many you had 