Thursday, December 6, 2007
Santa Knows What You've Been Reading...Or Not?
There's been a lot in the news lately about privacy on the net. First, came the Facebook intrusion, where user's shopping was reported to friends. The annoying thing here is that it's not as much the "intrusion" of being tracked, but the fact that a user can't opt out easily. Today, Facebook backed off and apologized.
Now, there is the tracking of behavior in the "network" by ISPs (e.g., CenturyTel) that would allow behavorial targeting by analyzing packet traffic. This is even more insidious, in that a subscriber on an ISP's broadband network is "known" to that network down to the name and street address. No cookies required here!
I've thought a lot about privacy. You've heard my "privacy" talk (it's a bit shorter than my "DRM" talk). The idea is that unless you opt in, you should not be tracked to an "individual" level on your behavior, including what pages you read, how long you read content for, or advertising you are interested in. The reality is that the magazine reporting and tracking does keep this information in a database, but it is "anonymous" with respect to an individual user. We can know an IP address, and in fact from that IP address discern with roughly 80% accuracy the geographic area, or perhaps even the organization, but it's a guess.
As publishers push harder for more revenue the issue of privacy and individual control is only going to be more hazardous for everyone playing in this market. Publishers and suppliers need to maintain an ethical standard and use common sense. Even in the absence of an explicit "Privacy Policy", the question often comes down to "How would I feel about this?" I'm not sure that the maxim of "What Would Google Do?" (WWGD) works anymore.
Now, there is the tracking of behavior in the "network" by ISPs (e.g., CenturyTel) that would allow behavorial targeting by analyzing packet traffic. This is even more insidious, in that a subscriber on an ISP's broadband network is "known" to that network down to the name and street address. No cookies required here!
I've thought a lot about privacy. You've heard my "privacy" talk (it's a bit shorter than my "DRM" talk). The idea is that unless you opt in, you should not be tracked to an "individual" level on your behavior, including what pages you read, how long you read content for, or advertising you are interested in. The reality is that the magazine reporting and tracking does keep this information in a database, but it is "anonymous" with respect to an individual user. We can know an IP address, and in fact from that IP address discern with roughly 80% accuracy the geographic area, or perhaps even the organization, but it's a guess.
As publishers push harder for more revenue the issue of privacy and individual control is only going to be more hazardous for everyone playing in this market. Publishers and suppliers need to maintain an ethical standard and use common sense. Even in the absence of an explicit "Privacy Policy", the question often comes down to "How would I feel about this?" I'm not sure that the maxim of "What Would Google Do?" (WWGD) works anymore.
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