“2/3 of american web users object to online tracking.” Really? That few?
Reading a study recently written up in the NYTimes (ht, @TheGrok), I find the results amusingly obvious.
Question: when you shop online, or visit a website, or view an ad – who owns the data describing that activity?
At first glance, the question seems to be easy to answer, until you actually start asking people. Anyone in marketing or eCommerce would be hard pressed to say that they had no right to keep and use that data. Many would say that, if they’re a participant in the transaction (regardless of whether a purchase was consummated), that they had at least as much right as the individual to that data.
Privacy advocates and civil libertarians will maintain that the individual’s data is their own, and that maintaining control over how it is used and maintained is a matter of personal liberty (in the constitutional sense.)
Consider some alternative scenarios:
If you walk into The Gap and buy a pair of jeans, does The Gap have the right to keep a record of you doing that? Does the answer change if you pay with cash, as opposed to a credit card? What if the cashier just happened to ask you your name, and commits it to memory? (Try this variation: you live in a small town with a general store, run by Harold, who makes a habit of remembering what you buy, so he can keep the store stocked. How uncomfortable does that make you feel?)
Let’s say you walk into The Gap and don’t buy anything. But the surveillance cameras record everything you do, including every item of clothing you examine. Do you have the right to demand that those tapes be erased? What if the manager makes a habit of watching those tapes, and committing to memory the items you spend the longest time looking at, so she can be ready to recommend something the next time you come in?
What if The Gap uses facial-recognition technology to match up surveillance video of what you browse to compare that against what you actually buy, several visits later? Does this feel more or less uncomfortable? What if Harold just happens to have a photographic memory, and is particularly observant?
Your answer might be expected to shift somewhat based on the introduction of technology into the scenario; we tend to be more comfortable with a level of intimate knowledge about us being maintained by another human being, as opposed to an impersonal system. But why? How can we hold Harold more accountable to use his knowledge responsibly? Suppose Harold is a bit of a gossip, and suddenly everyone in town knows that you have a fondness for Fruit Loops and Vaseline. You might stop shopping there, and pretty soon Harold starts losing business.
Introducing technology into the picture may increase the extent and scope of the tracking that’s possible, and it might make you uncomfortable, but it also adds an unexpected dimension: the possibility of more control over your data.
You can’t make Harold forget what he sees; you could make DoubleClick lose track of what sites you’ve visited, and where you’ve purchased. (And trust me, DoubleClick isn’t going to go out of their way to reconstruct your browsing history; as a single individual, you’re just not worth the effort.)
You can’t erase your shopping history at the general store, but you can clear your Amazon cookie. You can stop using a credit card, and pay for everything with cash. You can turn off cookies and Javascript and install an ad-blocker. You will never be completely anonymous, but you need only raise the bar ever so slightly for most marketers and merchants to give up on tracking your behavior.
Though changes may be afoot for the legal framework which governs what ad networks and merchants may collect, how they may use that data and what kind of disclosure will be necessary, I’d be willing to bet that that framework will trail the advent of privacy-enhancing technology by a couple of years. If the outcry is loud enough to warrant legislation, it can’t be very long before PayPal or some other enterprising entrepreneur introduces a Privacy-Enhanced browser/credit card/pop-up blocker that gains wide adoption.
The technology is perfectly feasible; all that’s missing is the demand.
Place your comment