Contemporary Advertising 14th Edition by William Arens ,Michael Weigold ,Christian Arens

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It is safe to assume that a large percentage of the readership of this book, by virtue of the fact that it is a college-level textbook, fall within the adult 18-24 demographic. This isn't hard to extrapolate, nor is it all that intrusive to the reader that someone somewhere has this information. However, if the knowledge were much deeper, and that someone knew where you were from, what your marital status is, what college you are attending, if you are female or male, and what type of cologne or perfume you like, that might be a bit scary If the information could go even deeper, well that would perhaps be unsettling.
It is just these types of feelings that drive the consumer privacy issues online. Throughout this chapter we've highlighted the various ways in which consumers can be targeted and messaged online. This is all possible due to a few lines of code called cookies that track, categorize, and filter your every click.
Companies like BlueKai, an online behavioral data company, supply marketers with access to consumers online who have exhibited behavior that match their intended target audience. For instance, if Audi wanted to be within the consideration set of a potential new car buyer, they would pay BlueKai a fee to identify and target all of those people that have exhibited such behavior-recently went to an auto website, spent a lot of time on that site, and has frequently returned over a specific duration. Companies like BlueKai can even suggest what type of car the person is interested in, so Audi could potentially buy all of the BMW "Auto Intenders," as classified by BlueKai.
Companies like BlueKai partner with large websites, like Expedia. com, which allows them to a ) capture this data, b ) mine it for insights, c ) organize and categorize the information, and d ) sell it to advertisers. In exchange, BlueKai shares the information and the revenue it creates with their partners. This allows their partners to have multiple revenue streams and do a better job of classifying their monthly Internet traffic that they too sell to advertisers.
While trying to understand consumer purchase behavior by tracking activity is not new-credit card companies have engaged in these practices selling their data to direct mail fulfillment houses-the amount of personal data and the ability to predict from that data is what has some people leery about the process. The insight into people's traffic patterns has sparked much debate over what is and what isn't intrusive to the consumer. When polled, 62% of consumers say they do not want their activities to be tracked online. How-ever, behaviorally targeted advertising is some of the highest performing online ads. So how does a marketer make heads or tails of this, as consumers are clearly more interested in the targeted advertising, but don't trust the way in which that information is gathered, and perhaps used.
To further complicate the issue, when an advertiser also has a Web property that has high monthly visitation, like Amazon.com, then the question of who owns the data arises. While most argue that the data of any individual is owned by that individual, there are no clear directions to the consumer, nor are there any industry-wide practices, that allow customers to turn off access to this data by advertisers. The savviest of online consumers turn off their cookies, however by doing so they limit the ability of the Internet to truly personalize their experience. Amazon.com's recommendation engine is a very good example of this. If you subscribe to the Amazon.com newsletter and spend a few minutes and a few pages looking for a particular type of item, say barbeques, but don't purchase. Then within a few days Amazon.com's email communications will miraculously be filled with barbeques, some of which you looked at, some of which are recommended to you. It must be known that Amazon. com works from a registered user base, thereby not utilizing cookies to track behavior but uses user sessions instead. However, the example still applies for the thousands of Web sites who practice something similar without ever registering for the site. Like.com (now owned by Google) was one such site. If you looked for a watch on their site but did not purchase, incredibly a banner ad displaying the last item you looked at would appear on your Yahoo! Mail login screen within minutes.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating the issue, much like they did in the early 2000s when they ultimately passed the CAN-SPAM act, making it illegal to spam-send email without permission. In late 2011, the FTC issued a privacy report that called for a "do not track" system to be put in place. Since that announcement all major browser software companies have supported the issue. What it means is that the default setting on browsers will have a header call (DNT:1) identifying that this individual wishes to not be tracked when they arrive at a Web site. However, the directive of this header call can only be acted upon by the server of the Web site, which makes the system as a whole honor-based. This means that Web sites, as of this writing, are not legally bound to take action on the browser header call, and since very few consumers even understand this, most Web sites do not comply.
Evidon, a privacy technology company, was founded to help consumers and business see, understand, and control data online. Their technology makes it easier for companies to comply with the "do not track" system, and insure that companies are maintaining a healthy consumer-focused set of privacy policies. As the debate and awareness continues to build, companies like Evidon will be important for brands and publishers to align with. Jon Leibowitz, the Chairman of the FTC, thinks that more privacy will actually be more lucrative for the online industry. However, not everyone agrees, especially those that can't see a better technology than cookie-based tracking. However, most everyone would agree that consumer trust is paramount in the long-view of revenue generation. What do you think?
Think of the last five Web sites you were on, what did you look at How do you think advertisers could use that information to better target you?