Discussion Assignment: Cookies and Privacy
Usability and Relevance vs Personal Data Collection
Am I willing to give up my “privacy” in order to have easier-to-use websites?
- As digital immigrant since 1996, I’ve been oscillating between yes and no. Today, just after having verified my own private security settings in Firefox, I must confess a “Yes”. Yes, I’m willing to give my very little piece of personal information whilst having a more confortable access to my favorite sites. I do accept first party cookies, and so Amazon greets me by my name, knowing (or more precisely saving my infos) my shopping preferences. Ebay the same, and so on. I’ve checked: even Netvibes - my gate to the web - uses a (french first party ;o) cookie. And so what! I hate typing in my logins and passwords whereever I surf … regularly. In my point of view, there’s no concern about first party cookies from sites that I trust and visit on regularly basis.
- As a consultant and web analyst, I wonder about the good old cookies. They still do exist, provoke negative emotions on userside and often avoid web analytics to be a 100% correct science. Seems to me, as they need an Awareness campaign, like “Trust me, I’m a cookie and not evil”. Or, a new, technical solution. But, solutionswise, I don’t have any ideas (yet).
- As a marketeer, first party cookies are only door openers to the entry site. From there on, users should be enabled to move along the funnel and get sticky with the site.
But, Do I want to give up my “behavioural privacy” so that ads I can see on websites are likely to be more relevant to me?
- No, says my intution, and my browser settings do show me the reason why: I have blocked third party cookies.
- It’s marketeers dream to deliver relevant advertising campaigns. But, I’ve seen and still see loads of so called customer centric blablabla and personalized newsletter not worth a dime. There are only few companies who manage to deal with a balance between giving (=relevant data) and taking (=personal infos). So many are greedy data pursuers, using registrations forms longer than their on selling contracts. And, what do you or I get for giving? Not much, often nonsense.
- I don’t trust behavioural targeting attempts, nurtured by third party cookie informations. Often, there’s no real added value for me. If I need information, I’d like to search by myself and hate to be influenced to much. Neverthelesse, there are good exemple, e.g Amazon, trying to show relevant shopping informations and (what I found really web 2.0) letting me adapt and/or correct my own profile. That’s business intelligence meeting web intelligence.
Good marketing is all about the big idea. In my point of view, advertising is a re-mix of myth building and busting. I want to be surprised by ads and campaigns. I believe in the principles of serendipity. I’m changing from day to day, without even touching the keyboard and writing my keywords. And so should my ads with me.
Dieser Eintrag wurde am 8.8.2008 um 17:45 verfasst und befindet sich in Life is a pitch, Consul-Tante. Sie können alle Antworten zu diesem Eintrag über den Feed RSS 2.0 mitverfolgen. Hinterlassen Sie eine Antwort oder einen Trackback-Link zu Ihrer eigenen Homepage.