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Users to Online Ad Industry: Leave Us Alone!
By dave_pasternack | March 31, 2008
TNS Global and TrustE jointly released a study today demonstrating that the majority of Web surfers are unhappy with the idea that advertisers will be using their browsing histories to serve targeted ads against. Even when survery repondents were given a scenario wherein no PII information was disclosed, most (54 percent) didn’t approve of the practice. As the report noted, “these statistics indicate a high level of discomfort with the idea of tracking, despite industry reassurances that the information is entirely anonymous.”
Some in the industry are greeting this as a bombshell. I greet it with a yawn. Users have been suspicious of every intrusive move made by corporations since the dawn of online computing (remember the great Prodigy STAGE.DAT cache fiasco of 1991? The Doubleclick/Abacus merger of 1999, which was aborted only after a withering firestorm of criticism? ) Online companies, including some of the biggest, have been caught with their pants down on privacy again and again. The industry has been fighting a reactive, in-denial battle against reasonable self-regulation for so long that it would be funny, if it weren’t now staring down the shotgun barrel of legislation from politicians like Richard Brodsky. If this industry really wants to gain the trust of users, why don’t we explain better what things like BT actually do (few respondents were familar with the term “behavioral targeting) and leave the decision about whether to opt-in to it to the users?
Topics: I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Clicking on It Anymore |
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