If not, you really should be and things are going to be heating up next year.
A growing number of people are concerned about their online privacy. And that trend looks like it is continuing to grow over the past few years. It was not that long ago when the Facebook privacy issues started to surface with information which was thought to be private was suddenly exposed to the web. Since that time, people have become more sensitive to protecting their information. For a time, I thought that younger generations where beginning to not care about keeping there information private. But, I am seeing a trend in the opposite direction. In Facebook, I am seeing far fewer wall posts from people and I attribute that to the desire to protect ones privacy.
In a recent survey from TRUSTe, they released their Online and Mobile Privacy Perceptions Report. They are reporting the trending change where people now are more concerned about their privacy on the web. This was done with 1033 adults and 544 smart phone users, all in the US. While you can review the report yourself, it seems that online privacy has taken a jump in recent years. And this year, interest has grown a lot.
Some of this I attribute to the location tracking scandal last year, catching up phone manufacturers and wireless carriers alike. This is where they were collecting information about where you were at which could be used to track you. But there are other activities beyond this which are now becoming a big focus for the public and the legislative bodies here in the US. And that is online behavioral advertising (OBA). And it is that item which has jumped to the top of people's concerns. If you are not aware of what this is, it is targeted advertising where you are tracked to see the type of web pages that you go to and the things that you click on. Another form of tracking, but this time for advertising purposes.
The idea of prohibiting this activity has been the topic of discussion for more than a year. There have been discussions about Do Not Track legislation and that is what has created the battle between the public and businesses. The Federal Government wants to implement regulation to provide for an opt out for everyone. Businesses do not want to lose a key part of their targeted advertising. And thus the discussions continue.
But after having talks going on for over 10 months without a resolution, we may be getting close to a policy coming out to protect consumers since businesses are not willing to budge very far on this. I am sure there are those who disagree what that being put in place. We should start hearing a lot about this beginning in December once the elections are over.
Business who use the information they collect about peoples browsing habits are saying that to block the collection would kill the internet. That is obviously an over blown statement meant to get ones attention. If everyone chose to opt out of information being collected about them, it would have a significant impact on a number of businesses. Take for instance our site here.
We place ads on the site which do use browsing information collected by Google to display a targeted ad. Without that information, the ads would potentially be random or tied to what is on the page only. That would potentially impact revenue. We are very small and if you consider large sites who rely on revenue from ads being clicked, they are going to be impacted. And the amount of money being paid for each ad being clicked is also going to go down.
This issue is the obvious divide between individuals wanting to keep their privacy when they browse versus the goal of businesses to make money on the Internet. Ad revenue on the Internet is a very big business and a significant interruption in that could alter the future for a number of companies. But, keeping my personal browsing habits is also very important in my concern about privacy. I did a few tests to see just how well the targeted advertising does work and it is impressive just how quickly they make adjustments.
I went out looking for some development software and hit 5 sites which were selling it. Any browsing that I did after I did that had an ad on various sites for the development software. The targeted advertising is quick to make changes so that they can get you to click on a link and hopefully buy something.
In the end, I think there is going to have to be options on sites or in browsers which will give you the options to not be tracked. It will probably be in your browser, much in the same way that you can block cookies from being placed on your machine. Giving people the option in a browser to turn it on or off would provide the best solution. For a time, there will be a lot of people turning it on. As time goes by, the number of people opting to not be tracked will more than likely go down.
Expect to hear a lot more about target advertising as we approach the end of the year. The level of discussion is going to get very lively as there is a lot at stake for businesses.
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