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Privacy Gone Overboard
I like the Do Not Call list, and I’m all for disclosure and privacy, but today I read that a coalition of groups led by the Center for Democracy and Technology is calling for a “Do Not Track” list that would prohibit advertisers from tracking the online activity of registered people. This is not just an issue for the Goliaths of advertising who might be tracking the ads and behavior of users across multiple sites, but it goes right to the core of the way that most every Web site works - cookies and session tracking.
Any article I read said nothing about the small sites or the Affiliate marketing industry. After all, if a user has opted out of “tracking” on some master database, then this means that every site in the world will have to not only know who these users are, but also have ways to not track them. Let’s hope they don’t outlaw cookies because I don’t think you can know not to track someone without tagging them with a cookie. But that fails when you have more than one person using a computer and one does not mind the tracking and the other has opted out. Or when someone goes to a different computer or uses one at work, or just borrows someone else’s computer for a few minutes.
I know, maybe we should assign an ID number to every person in the world, and require them to log into each computer they use every time they use it before they can access the internet. Without showing their ID, they would have to be tracked because only outlaws and terrorists would not register with the government so that they would not be tracked by the evil advertisers and affiliate marketers. That way when anyone uses the Internet the government can check their papers and identity - and of course they would then be able to track everything everyone did as well - just for our protection of course! I feel safer already.
Come on people! This is not like the do not call list where you can give them a phone number and keep someone from interrupting dinner to sell you siding. This is the equivalent of someone sending you an IM to your computer, not the same as serving an ad or tracking your path through a site (or across sites) as you surf the Web.
How does this coalition think that this could work? Go to some Web site and register your IP address? Nope, that won’t work. EMail? Not unless you have to log in first, and that would require the browsers (or OS) to be set up to query the master database every time you logged in. How about the MAC address of your computer? Nope, that still fails if more than one person uses the computer or you sell the computer, and it can’t handle what happens if you use someone else’s computer.
Maybe they expect this to be an opt in service. That way every ad server, affiliate program, and other Web site that might want to make your browsing experience better can just simplify everything and stop tracking anybody unless they register for the site and prove that they read and understood (a comprehension test, maybe?) the privacy policy before they can search, shop, or browse.
Boy, that sounds like a great improvement.
Don’t like ads? Block them. Don’t like tracking? Block every cookie. But I hope you also don’t like to shop, bank, or use just about any service online as they will all break without knowing who you are and what you want.
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