eTail

It was a great few days at eTail West in Palm Springs.  I am always humbled to be in the same setting with so many of the best minds in retail strategy, marketing, and technology.  I especially appreciated my fellow panelists on the "Adding Value To Your Business And Getting Started With Attribution Modeling To Allocate Dollars And Resources Most Effectively".  Thank you @brandonproctor, @eskolfield, and to Mike Sands from BrightTag for his excellent moderating and for his microbrew analogy of attribution.

Advertisers...Understand Your Options With Tracking

While I would not consider myself a technical wizard by any stretch, 14 years in digital advertising has forced me to get my hands dirty and understand methods of tracking online users.  This to ensure that the brands I have represented are aware of issues near and dear to consumer privacy advocates.  

Recently, the FTC settled with online advertising company, Scan Scout, regarding their use of Flash cookies.   While Flash Cookies may carry more nefarious aliases such as “zombie cookies” or “super cookies”, they are essentially data files associated with Adobe Flash, the popular web multimedia platform which is typically associated with web video, animation, and interactive applications.  These data files act like standard cookies, but since they do not live in the same location as standard cookies, they are not removed either manually or automatically by typical web browser controls.  They can also be utilized to spawn standard cookies that have been deleted at some earlier point.  It is only a recent development that web browsers have been able to identify and manage these in a similar manner to standard cookies.

In non-technical speak, flash cookies enable advertisers, networks, and tracking mechanisms an ability to follow online users without much control of the user to control their privacy by limiting the online user’s ability to remove the cookies.  For those that see the situation as such…it’s the equivalent of putting a “kick-me” sign on somebody’s back and then that somebody wonders why they’re getting so much attention.  I speak for many when I say, that just ain’t right and it’s not good for our industry.

While Adobe has been making strides to resolve this use of Flash, there are always going to be those who continue to push the envelope on tracking methodologies, which ultimately are not in the control of online users.  This type of behavior is what will continually push legislators to take a more heavy-handed approach to regulating online privacy.  In essence, the cops will break up the party before it even gets off the ground. 

An example is the utilization of fingerprinting.  Fingerprinting leverages information published by the browser such as IP address, browser version, time zone, etc. to create a “fingerprint” of the online user machine with the intent of re-identifying them at a later date.  To be fair, this methodology seems like a challenge and I respect the technical prowess of an organization that can deploy this methodology in a scalable form and accurate format.  I have heard arguments from both sides pertaining to the accuracy or inaccuracy of fingerprinting, especially accuracy over lengthy periods of time.  So, I feel the jury is out on this methodology from an accuracy perspective.

In my mind, regardless of the level of accuracy, you are essentially tracking consumers without their permission or ability to opt out.  As the information is based from standard communications between the web browser and the website, the user will not have control over this information (at least easily) and it will force similar resistance from consumer advocacy groups, thereby leading to either legislation or the elimination of passing information from the browser to site.   Now, the issue with the latter is that websites would no longer know browser type, location, OS, etc. and thereby present a very impersonalized experience to users.  That will not make a web operations group very happy.

As an advertiser, it is imperative that you request documentation from your partners on how they collect information on users and what users are able to do in order to opt out of tracking.  If it appears that users do not have control over the tracking, it is best to error on the side of caution.  Why?  Do a search on Google for “flash cookie lawsuits” and that should be all of the evidence you need.  While some of these cases have fallen apart, it is nevertheless bad press for the advertisers.

Lastly, it is imperative that advertisers realize that the digital world is not 100% trackable.  By that line of thinking, the end solution will likely encompass standard tracking but also quantitative approaches (similar to media mix modeling in the traditional media world), to ensure that the “untrackable” is accounted for.  This obviously makes the end solution less simple to construct as the skillset becomes highly specialized.  However, user control of their privacy is paramount and advertisers have the responsibility to drive their dollars towards providers utilizing responsible tracking mechanisms.

If you are an advertiser, be wary of “too good to be true” tracking methodologies that are outside of the average online user’s control.  Either the leak will be plugged up at some point or worst-case scenario…you could be seen as an advertiser uncaring of consumer privacy.  In the court of public opinion, the “I was not aware” defense does not carry much weight in the area of consumer privacy.