Rename Do-Not-Track to Give-Me-Irrelevant-Ads
Anybody who has done any survey work knows that the answer depends quite a bit on how you ask the question. The Do-Not-Track list is a perfect example. “Consumer advocates” (who appoints them, anyway?) are pushing for an FTC-controlled Do-Not-Track list to allow people to opt opt of being anonymously tracked in order to get relevant ads. The problem is, they are comparing this with the Do-Not-Call list for telemarketers, which implies both that this advertising is incredibly disruptive, and that if you put your name on the list, you won’t get any ads. Both are wrong. Here’s the difference in how the questions could be asked:
Do you want your every activity tracked online by some company you’ve never heard of, just like those awful telemarketers? Yes/No
vs
You are going to get ads in any case. Do you want completely random ads, or ads that might actually be a little bit useful, based on some information about what you’ve done online lately? Random/More relevant
Just call it the “Give-Me-Irrelevant-Ads” list, and I’ll be fine with it.
Micro Persuasion: “Do Not Track List” is the First Shot in the Behavioral Targeting Wars
November 7th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
This isn’t exactly true.
Just because the ad system doesn’t know anything about you, it does know a LOT about the site you are visiting, and specifically the page you are viewing. It can use a onotlogy/taxonomy service to figure out what is on the page, and then serve ads based on that.
What will be affected by lack of cookies are behaviorial targeting (you looked a car site last month, so show something car related on this site) and ads which are designed to only show once to a individual. (or you show them a story on progressive pages).
What it means to publishers is that if they have crap content, they will get a crap CPM, as they can’t use higher CPM ads on lower quality content.