Do Consumers care about Privacy? Hell No!

Tuesday, August 25. 2009

Do Consumers care about Privacy? Hell No!

No - the munchkins seem quite happy to give away pictures of their naked teenage daughters for 5% off (as one chap at SXSW earlier this year put it). And now, more evidence - Ad Age reports that:

Fetchback, an advertising network that specializes in ad "retargeting," added a link within its ad units that, when clicked, took consumers to a page that explained who the advertiser was and how the ad got there and gave contact info for Fetchback, as well as a way to opt out of future targeting.

When Fetchback compared the rate at which people opted out before it added the link and after, it found that it actually went down slightly. It's early data and a limited sample -- two weeks' worth, both before and after -- but it shows that fears that consumers will choose to eschew web targeting en masse are perhaps overblown.

No surprises there I'm afraid. We got this all wrong, big time, - 3 years ago we predicted the "consumer backlash" on privacy within 2 years - the signs were all there, and then Beacon came out - surely, we thought, the scales would fall from their eyes - but turns out that the average grockle just don't care. There are some concerns that this study is a bt self serving :

Ideally, the online-ad industry wants to remain self-regulated, and improving the friendliness and ease of opting out is one way to convince legislators and regulators it takes the job seriously. More than a half dozen industry organizations recently launched a new set of regulations in hopes of staving off government involvement.

But we have searched in vain for major grass roots concern about online privacy for 2 years. Initially we thought it may be nefarious attempts to hide the small print (a la Facebook), sneaky opt ins etc etc or just consumer naivete - but in reality most people will do anything for a discount. Hand over all your shopping data for a penny back in every £10? - sure thing, here's my supermarket card!

Posted by Alan Patrick in Identity / Profiles / Trust at 07:56 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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A similar thing happened with DRM: it wasn't a big issue until people started to find out how stuff they paid for didn't work. It's still only a minor issue for many - but it becomes major for those who bought a big TV only to find out that their high-def DVDs won't play because they didn't get the one with the right connector.

Right now, most people believe others bring privacy problems on themselves because that's what they see from the world of celebs. As more come face-to-face with privacy problems, or hear horror stories from their friends, I'd expect them to take more notice.

You'll notice it from conversations like: "I put pics of my 2yr old on Facebook."

"You did what??? Didn't you hear about so and so?..."

It'll take longer with the loyalty card thing because supermarkets have been fairly careful at not making it too obvious to consumers how much data they have collected. Getting the odd mailing with a set of vouchers for cat food because you've bought it regularly in the past isn't that intrusive. But what if you don't buy chocolate biscuits for a few weeks and a mailing comes through asking how your diet is going? So starts the descent into Creepyville.

#1 Chris Edwards (Homepage) on 2009-08-25 09:17 (Reply)

...and they really do not - i agree! i asked myself a hundred times why they do not but i think it is senseless wondering about human beings!

#2 Rita Designermode (Homepage) on 2009-09-21 10:36 (Reply)

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