faulker046

FTC’s proposed a framework to protect the privacy of consumers . Part of this framework is a “Do Not Track” option that has raised a lot of questions among the web analytics and advertising community. Well since this is just a proposal at this stage nobody knows how it will finally pan out. At this point FTC has published the report to seek public comments. The report that FTC has put together is 122 pages long. I have extracted some important point from that report in case you don’t have the time to read the full report. The basic building blocks of this framework are: Scope : The framework applies to all commercial entities that collect or use consumer data that can be reasonably linked to a specific consumer, computer, or other device. Note: This is not limited only those who collect PII data, if you collect any information about a consumer then this applies to you. However commission is seeking input on how to determine “reasonably linked to a specific consumer…” Privacy by De...

Past weekend, WSJ published a story titled Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets on online tracking and advertising ( behavioral targeting ). It appears to me that the author of this article is either confused between malware and cookies is or she is just doing what she is supposed to do to sell the story i.e. using words that instill fear in people. The article projects any tracking, business and advertisers do to serve relevant ads or personalize the users experience on web, as malicious. Businesses have been trying to understand consumer preferences and then make personalized recommendations ever since the humans existed. We do it offline all the time. So how is online tracking for the same purpose malicious? My dad used to run his clothing store in India, way before internet existed. He used to gather all the information (in his brain) about consumers browsing and purchase behavior to make personalized recommendation to existing customers and new customers. He used all that informat...

Last week I wrote about a browser plug-in that will allow people to opt-out of the Google Analytics cookie . The release of this plug-in seems to be a proactive step towards another announcement. Eric Peterson, on his blog, voiced his opinion on why Google is rolling out this plug-in . I think Eric has a point in his post about Google trying to make a push into Federal Government web sites and this roll out is a check-box to satisfy the needs of privacy advocates. However, I am still not entirely clear on what Google will get if it can’t use all the data that it will collect on Federal Government website? It won’t be able to use in any way…well maybe at an aggregate level to compete with the likes of ComScore . So what do I think the reason is? Behavioral Targeting I think the real answer to Google Analytics’ rolling out Opt-out is “ Behavioral Targeting ”. Google Analytics is deployed on thousands of websites and collects a wealth of data. However, so far this data is used by ind...

During 2007-2008 I wrote a lot about online privacy on this blog. Most of the online privacy discussion at that time revolved around online targeting based on tracking users online behaviors also knows as behavioral targeting . It amazes my how many privacy advocates and senators are concerned about anonymous online tracking and behaviorally targeted ads based on peoples click behavior when the consumers are voluntarily giving all the private information on social media sites. Last week Google Analytics announced a plug-in that will let users opt-out of Google Analytics . Really...is web analytics tracking detrimental to visitors' privacy? Google Analytics collects click stream data anonymously. It does not know who you are, it identifies you via a cookie and tracks what pages were viewed by that cookie, what buttons were clicked by cookie etc. This data is then used by individual sites using the tool (Google Analytics) to understand the behavior of their visitors and optimize the...

Late last week Google Analytics announced a browser plug-in that will allow users to opt-out of Google Analytics tracking. Here is an offical statement from Amy Chang , group product manager at Google Analytics: As an enterprise-class web analytics solution, Google Analytics not only provides site owners with information on their website traffic and marketing effectiveness, it also does so with high regard for protecting user data privacy. Over the past year, we have been exploring ways to offer users more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics. We concluded that the best approach would be to develop a global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics. Our engineers are now hard at work finalizing and testing this opt-out functionality. We look forward to make it globally available to our users in the coming weeks. How does it impact the website stats reported by Google Analytics This is the biggest question everybody is ask...