Cookies and the invisible man

The issue of internet privacy is resurfacing with a vengeance. US privacy advocates and consumer bodies are seeking the creation of an opt-out list for internet users who do not want to be tracked by advertisers.

Advertisers will no doubt claim they are being unfairly barred from providing more relevant and targeted content to precisely identified audiences. But the implications of any opt-out mechanism would be largely short-term anyway.

I firmly believe that over time, we’re going to find a balance where research will look at customer activity and user behaviour on a holistic basis, rather than on channel specific information. As a result, the issue of whether a cookie is retained and used will be insignificant compared to what is known about customers in total.

For more sophisticated and successful companies, this is already a reality. If we consider Tesco and Dunnhumby, for example, their research methodologies are so tied to their marketing activities that they seem to know more about their customer’s behaviour than the customer knows about themselves. Hardly any of this information comes from cookies.

As an industry we have to act responsibly and reassure consumers that data collection is in their interests as well as ours. While it may seem sinister, the bulk of the data is used to create models for how online marketing works in the context of overall activity, rather than to target them specifically. In an overall context, the ability to opt-out of tracking is almost irrelevant – the removal of one data point will not make consumers invisible. Unless they stay indoors, pull the curtains and turn off the lights someone, somewhere is probably researching them.