Madison Avenue is abuzz this week about the latest university research which found that 2/3s of American consumers don’t like being tracked online. I’m not really sure why this is shocking or even newsworthy.
Not surprisingly, all the pundits are jumping on the privacy angle….consumers don’t want anyone to know anything about them!! I think that’s BS. We share personal information with realtors, car salesmen, neighbors and strangers daily. But when we do that, WE receive the value, not someone else. I don’t think consumers are freaking out that Ford wants to know what car you drive. I think we are freaking out because that info is gathered behind our back and sold without any benefit to us.
If the question is asked honestly, what the advertising industry is really asking is this…
“How can we get consumers to feel OK about having their personal information collected and sold despite the fact that we are unwilling to share any of the bounty and value their personal information generates?”.
If consumers, who own their personal information, received the money that was spent buying that information…does anyone think 2/3s of Americans would object?
2 comments ↓
[While deleting spam this morning, somehow a lot of real messages disappeared...I'm reposting the ones that I have copies of in email]
POSTED BY JONAS: 10/09/09 1:08PM
The article states that 66% don’t like tailored ads, which is different than being tracked. I’d love to see how the questions were worded. Of course if you ask 10 people if they “like being tracked online” most will say no. Just like if you ask them if they like taxes.
so how is gomper targeting people, cuz I know ya are
A good example: Usually I uncheck the boxes during software installation where the company wants to collect anonymous information about me.
Last year I did a Microsoft program where I would be able to choose a free microsoft product: Office, Vista, Publisher … in exchange for installing an application that would track how i use my PC (granted I read the fine print very carefully) and decided to go ahead with it … the monitoring ended, I received my new Windows Vista Ultimate free of charge and I feel satisfied.
I believe that my data is going towards a good cause (to improve windows) and I had the additional motivation to do it. I’ve actually gone back to MS site looking for a similar offer again.
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