image credit: Psycho Crow [Flickr]
Online privacy is a personal issue for people. Every inch we move into a more open and thus exposed web creates dozens of angry blog entries and Facebook protest groups. But ultimately, there are a lot of people out there that have come to accept the reality of their digital footprint. And far more out there that don’t even know how to do anything in order to protect their privacy better.
So the question is: If awareness comes to more than the technically savvy few, is there a threat to data accuracy? And as data becomes more inaccurate, so does the relevance of contextual advertising, creating a new generation of people who rather just “shut it off”, because it means nothing to them.
Should we be giving users more options to turn off ads, to turn off tracking? Or should we just be giving them better ads? And are those two things becoming mutually exclusive?

Based on a recent article on Google in the NY Times, Google has begun showing ads to people based on their previous online activities, also known as behavioral targeting. This is nothing new in the online advertising space, but it has been widely criticized by privacy advocates and some members of Congress. Google is doing something that most competitors aren’t. They are offering transparency and they are giving users a choice to opt out:

“Perhaps to forestall objections to its approach, Google said it planned to offer new ways for users to protect their privacy. Most notably, Google will be the first major company to give users the ability to see and edit the information that it has compiled about their interests for the purposes of behavioral targeting. Like rivals such as Yahoo, it also will give users the choice to opt out from what it calls ‘interest-based advertising’.”

What This Means To Consumers
These new promises of transparency by Google still aren’t enough for some people, and the protesters are falling into two camps:
1. People who want to take Google down as a sacrificial OLA lamb
2. People who want Google to lead the way in consumer education
People in the first group have created an interestingly subversive attempt to discredit the validity of the system by basically spamming Google Adwords with clicks.

“We can force Google to stop their privacy violations while ridding the internet of advertising … by clicking ads. Google revealed its latest plan to violate your privacy: they will now record the types of websites you visit in order to gather a behavioral profile of your interests purportedly so that they can send you targeted advertising. I propose that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated “click fraud” in order to undermine Google’s advertising program with the goal of forcing Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy.”

But as some pointed out, Google AdSense has brought a “democratization of advertisers” by allowing anyone from big brands to small shop owners to place ads online. How do you hurt the big guys without also harming small, local businesses? And others just saw the fight as pointless:

“The most important question that this tussle with Google raises is whether a fight against Google is even possible. Or is Google too big, too intertwined in the fabric of the internet, to be critiqued and forced to bow to our collective protest?”

Then there is the second camp of people who feel Google needs to lead the way in consumer education. “We think more needs to be done on how to educate people and tell them how to opt out,” said Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Google has laid out is an explanation of the system as well as tools to specifically opt out. But privacy advocates have mixed feelings about these updates. Some praise the effort to provide transparency by Google, but how many users truly understand the ramifications of what is being presented to them in EULA’s and Terms of Services. For that matter how many millions of people have a Google Toolbar or other locally installed tool that they haven’t really understood the Terms of Service.
Interestingly enough, one intrepid technologist has created a device to make their cat say “I agree” to the endless amount of Terms of Service prompts.

“My cat, Simba, agrees instead of me. As he is not a legal entity, I don’t really know how kitty’s agreements would stand up in court, but I like to think he would be responsible for any breaches of contract, assuming the agreement is even enforceable. After all, he is not even of legal age, at least in human years.”

Most people also don’t understand why they’re local antivirus software is constantly telling them they need to remove tracking cookies. These people will certainly not understand how to manage their Google privacy settings and ad preferences.
What This Means To Advertisers
So how do companies like Organic who provide advertising and analytics services, deal with the potential inaccuracies in the current ad tracking model.
There have always been some problems with the accuracy of Javascript and Cookie based tracking mechanisms. There are even more recent issues with the accuracy of data that are highlighted in testing (like javascript at the top vs bottom of pages).
It is now fairly well known that 3rd party cookies get deleted. This number has been estimated as high as 15%. This tends to inflate unique visitors. So we use first party cookies. But first party cookies have their own problems defeating anti-spyware programs.
So now with Google allowing people to opt out of their vast ad network, how do we sort out what accurate numbers are? Perhaps we just need to learn to accept inaccuracy, that “data quality on the internet absolutely sucks” as one blogger has stated. He lays out a six step plan to just “get over it”…
1. Resist the urge to dive deep into the data to find root cause.
2. Assume a level of comfort with the data.
3. Start making decisions that you are comfortable with.
4. Over time drill deeper in micro specific areas & learn more.
5. Get more comfortable with data and its limitations over time.
6. Consistency in calculations = Good.
Only here is the ultimate Catch 22: the less accurate the data, the less relevant the advertising. How can we learn how do deliver more relevant ads, to deliver better ads if we are reading from a book with missing pages?
Web 3.0 aims to create better contextual advertising by digging the true meaning out of the words on the page… concepts, not keywords. But that is only the piece of the puzzle called “context” not “behavior”:

“So semantic technology could do a lot to solve the current problems we have with contextual advertising, but what about behavioral targeting. What about turning semantic camera around and give a good look at the people viewing the page? I have yet to see is a semantic-based advertising technology that taps into the power of the social graph.”

Ultimately it seems like consumers are growing okay with things being open and exposed about them online so long as it isn’t being used to sell them stuff they don’t want. But what about selling them stuff they DO want? In the culture of “everything for free”, that means ad-supported. So why not at least make that advertising relevant?
Shwe-Lee Tsao
Marta Strickland