\u201c\u2026The latest bill from Sen. Rockefeller would require companies to honor your decision if you do not want to be tracked online. And it would put the full force of the law behind your decision, so tracking companies would be held accountable if they go against your wishes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Things like Facebook data leaks and the recent Sony data security fiasco should be taken very seriously. Users should be able to feel confident that their personal information is secure. But this email, along with some of the legislation it references, mentions online tracking cookies together with major security breaches despite the fact that they are two VERY separate issues. *Ironically, the links in the email take you to a site that uses Google Analytics tracking cookies.*<\/em><\/p>\n The first bill, proposed by McCain\/Kerry<\/a>, seems to me to make a lot of sense: if a website is collecting personal information, it has a responsibility to the users to notify them and keep their information secure and private. This falls well in line with how the Web Analytics industry treats data (see the Google Analytics<\/a> or Omniture Terms of Service<\/a>, or the Web Analytics Association\u2019s Code of Ethics<\/a>).<\/p>\n Another piece of legislation<\/a>, led by Senator Rockefeller, is on the floor right now: a \u201cDo-Not-Track\u201d bill that will legislate a user\u2019s ability to opt-out of having any of their online activity tracked. Along with this bill comes much propaganda like the above-mentioned email, scaring people into thinking technology that they don\u2019t understand must be harming them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying that users should not be able to opt-out of online tracking. Most web analytics vendors already have an opt-out<\/a> for the data mentioned above and most websites already have a privacy policy<\/a> detailing what is being tracked. The industry is already self-regulating things like opt-outs- I have yet to hear of a case where a user\u2019s request to opt-out has not been respected. Odds are, you go about your online business every day without ever looking for opt-outs and privacy policies because you don\u2019t feel threatened until politicians bring it up.<\/p>\n The problem with the legislation and the information going out with it is that it lumps all kinds of tracking together, from security leaks of personal data (very bad), data-mining and sharing (potentially bad) to web analytics tracking (good). Web Analytics tracking, when done in accordance with industry standards, leaves practically no room for harm to the user and so much room for benefit for the user, but by legislating it and scaring the public with mixed-up information about it, it may lead internet users to opt-out of services that are actually beneficial to them.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at just how \u201cevil\u201d these tracking cookies are and what information they store. On my blog currently (unless you have blocked it) I have set an Omniture cookie that may look something like this:<\/p>\n The \u201cvalue\u201d (what the cookie contains) is just a string of arbitrary letters and numbers that serve no purpose other than to identify the user from page to page. \u201cUser afb5ced3bc5c8c3767728316b1db17f2 came in on the Google keyword \u2018blue wugs\u2019 and went from the home page to a content page then left the site.\u201d If I had a retail site, I might use this cookie to track what items were purchased and how much revenue I generated, so that I could tie it back and see which marketing efforts are returning value.<\/p>\n Every internet user should WANT this kind of tracking on them. It\u2019s like voting by secret ballot: every time you click (or don\u2019t click) on an item, you are submitting an anonymous vote for how the website could be better.<\/p>\n These are the kinds of messages you are anonymously sending to the website you are on, without even knowing about it, when you are tracked:<\/p>\n When these pieces of feedback are looked at in aggregate- thousands of users all trending one way or another- Web Analysts not only can see what ways to improve their site but also where they should spend marketing dollars.<\/p>\n Much of the current legislative hullabaloo is around targeted marketing efforts. Targeting is when websites use tracking technology (usually something beyond basic web tracking) to automatically present a user with content that is particularly relevant to them based on information that the website has learned about that user. For instance, on Facebook I just saw this ad:<\/p>\n Either highly coincidental, or Facebook has learned (probably from my user profile where I state my profession as a web analytics professional) that I have an email-based job and that I am obsessed with measuring\/analyzing data. This is targeted advertising and it comes in many forms. Once you get past feeling mildly creeped out (it helps to remember it\u2019s all anonymous and automated), targeted advertising benefits you in all sorts of ways.<\/p>\n All internet users want online marketers to succeed, whether they are aware of it or not. The existence of (and free access to) the sites we know and love relies on successful marketing. I know no one loves an internet cluttered with ads, but I\u2019m pretty sure we\u2019d hate it even more if it were ad-free with the caveat of having to pay for each site we visited. The more relevant the ads can be to the users, the more successful they are- meaning less ads are needed to keep the internet afloat. Targeting not only helps keeps the internet free it makes the internet more relevant to users.<\/p>\n With web analytics tracking technology as it is right now, you can send an online marketer a message that their ad is annoying or ineffective by simply not clicking on it. Marketers can see if their ads are a waste of your internet space and a waste of their marketing dollars.<\/p>\n These are just a few of the ways that, by volunteering a little bit of anonymous information about their web usage, users contribute to a better internet- not just better for marketers and analysts, but better for internet users everywhere. Regardless of current legislation, the Web Analytics Industry must put effort into educating the public about what is being tracked, why, and how it benefits the average user. Where do you stand?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few weeks ago, I received an email from a respected consumer watchdog group campaigning for support for two online privacy bills currently being discussed in Congress. Here\u2019s a sample of what it contained: \u201cHidden \u2018cookies\u2019 in your computer that track your Internet movements and record what you buy online. Smartphones that secretly log the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":606,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitaldatatactics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"cookies\"](\"http:\/\/digitaldatatactics.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cookies.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDATA LEAKS & CONSUMER CONFIDENCE<\/h3>\n
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION<\/h3>\n
THE PROBLEM WITH GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCONSUMER AND USER BENEFITS<\/h3>\n
\n
TARGETING VS RELEVANCY<\/h3>\n
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