The Washington Post recently had an article in their business section that did an excellent job of detailing what I am calling the “Quiet Storm.” How would you like being tracked on-line? In other words, do you want your ISP and others, such as advertisers, knowing what websites you are visiting? What emails you are sending? Or what about your search history? Although the Ad Networks, technology companies, and ISP’s admit they are tracking this information, they won’t talk about it? Why are they so quiet about it? One industry exec said they are being quiet about it for fear of consumer backlash. It’s akin to the mortgage industry selling loans to people who should have never qualified. The banks knew they should not have sold these sub-prime loans but greed got the best of them. Now everybody is going to lose - the consumer, the bank, the industry, and the American taxpayer.
Although the companies that are quietly collecting this data about you state they will never tie anything back to your personal information, my “bullshit meter”, when hearing this, registers on the high side. The web advertising industry is too hyper-competitive for someone not to break the rules and when that happens, hits the national news, watch out because the public backlash will be so fierce that Congress will be forced to enact new laws with stiff penalties.
Marketers, who are leveraging this behavioral data, to better target offers, should be very cautious with how they proceed. Once the consumer wakes up to the notion that their web traffic is being tapped, the “Quiet Storm” brewing could turn into revolutionary consumer backlash and do irreparable damage to the brand. Once you have lost the consumer’s trust, they will go out of their way not to buy your products and share their negative feelings with their friends and colleagues, further eroding the brand’s ability to sell products and services.
