Web Privacy
WebPrivacy is there such a thing or is it an Oxymoron?
If you have read my thoughts about what underpins of growth of the Internet and Digital Advertising, you will recall that someone has to eventually pay for the content, the digital internet cabling, internet service providers of this digital infrastructure, the indexing of the digital content and the folks that write blogs and other such User Generated Content that make up that Digital Eco System. That someone is effectively and eventually the ultimate consumer who makes it all possible: that’s me and you.
What I mean is the commercial reality which allows the Internet to exist and grow is largely supported by Advertising dollars spend by Businesses who wish to offer you goods and services. To get that exposure and visibility they need to Display their offering on websites site that attract sometimes a large audience of consumers or sometimes a nice target audience that is likely to purchase their goods or services. There are literally hundreds of Thousands of sites that accept your Advertising message in exchange for a CPM, CPC or CPA Advertising Dollars. As a company or organisation who wishes to create brand awareness and transactional opportunities for your products, you used to need to contact the Advertising Sales person of the publishing company and do a manual media buy one by one usually some time ago.
In the last few years there have been a growing number of Advertising networks with the biggest of them all being Google Adwords itself. Advertising Networks make it easy for the advertising Agency or knowledgeable and resourced Advertiser to purchase Advertising directly on numerous sites simultaneously.
The point is for all of that to work in a seamless and cost effective way for all the stakeholders of this Digital Eco System, clusters of digital consumers who express some interest in your product or services need to be targeted. Targeting make it an efficient and elegant way for lots of small and big advertisers to participate in the digital economy.
So it is all about a means to an end. For most of the networks, Advertisers and consumers who look for or wish to be exposed to useful content/products/services a method was to cluster groups of quasi-anonymous consumers who may have an interest in specific products and services. Cookies have multiple purposes and one of them solves the Digital Consumer Cluster Targeting. eCommerce or the ability to purchase goods and services for instance would simply not be possible without a “Session Cookie”
Let’s go back for a minute to the humble Cookie. At the very basic level, a lack of Cookie methodology means no targeting so next time you go to your usual Website to catch up on the latest news, the chances of being offered irrelevant information and commercial offers would simply be higher. This means getting a lot more unwanted digital stuff thrown at you! Both information and commercial offers/special you probably have little interest in. Since there is much more information that one can possibly consume in several lifetimes, you want stuff that you have an interest in. It would be frustrating if “Session Cookies did not exist.
My point being that Internet Cookies were never designed to reveal one’s personal identify. It simply cannot do so in the same way the Store Manager at Target or K-Mart cannot know the identity of all who walk into the front door. There are a variety of essential functions being performed by the Internet Cookie which makes browsing possible and underpins the commercial viability of the Digital Eco System as we know it today.
Recently there has been an increasing level of debate and scrutiny of Internet Privacy. The US Federal government used to have a hands-off approach to Internet privacy regulation. Today, the newly written “privacy bill of rights” is being written to help regulate the commercial collection of consumer data online.
I believe that the only way Cookie based information can be harmful is if Cookie Clustering was combined with your IP address. Your IP is your unique online identifier. A number allocated to you by your ISP or Internet Service Provider. That number can used using an IP Reverse Look up to check out your General Physical Address.
Before making my point, I would like for you to try this: Look up your own IP if you do not know it already by going to Look Up My IP. Then try to see if someone who may know your IP can determine which neck of the woods you live in by doing a Reverse IP Look Up. Kind of freaky that you could do this for let’s say, someone who visits a site that you own and manage. However, this is still fairly harmless so not to worry.
This leads me to the recent debacle with the Goole Mapping Cars and the furore it created when it inadvertently logged into private Wi-Fi networks as it cruised the streets and collected a few significant things like purpoted email content and passwords. This is a really serious break of trust in the supposed knowledge that your Personal Information is safe.
What happened here has nothing to do with the proposed Privacy Bill of rights. I would hope that the regulators clearly understand that Facebook Apps Market data collection, that Search Engine’s Mapping Cars inadvertently collecting personal information and Advertising Network Data collection about anonymous non opt-in, users specific interest in products, services and information are 3 vastly different issues.
The real issue is the privacy and safety of CRMs of organisation who have lots of personal stuff about you that are after all “hackable”. That is a true worry and this is where compliance and regulatory monitoring should be enforced.
For instance, I recently started using a third party app Browser Setting Sync which allows me to access bookmarks added on a browser on my laptop when using my iPhone or iPad or any other PC when logged in using my email address. I started using it without immediately realising that I have given my password to a 3Rd party who if they wanted to, could “read it and use it”. Whilst I can only but trust them, what if they got hacked?
Conclusion and my recommendation is for you the consumer to be informed. Whilst I am not advocating training before you use your laptop and start enjoying the Web, in similar manner to passing tests before being granted a driving licence, let’s be realistic. Might not be such a bad idea for your own safety and that of others on the road, to take some classes about the do’s and do not do’s of online surfing.
