Is the application of online behavioral targeting through the portal players an example of “smart” marketing, as a recent One Degree interviewee suggests or a “hornet’s nest” of potential privacy issues as Cyber-lawyer Eric Goldman suggests. You decide.
“Yahoo!”:http://www.yahoo.ca/ Canada’s Hunter Madsen stated in Ken Schafer’s latest “5 Questions interview”:http://www.onedegree.ca/2006/09/14/5-questions-for-hunter-madsen-marketing-director-yahoo-canada that:
bq. Most advertisers are dabbling in BT [Behavioral Targeting] these days … but the smartest players dived right in more than a year ago, and they’re pulling results that would surprise you.
Leaving aside Mr. Madsen’s objectivity in deciding which “players” get to be considered the “smartest”, I find it interesting that he is the second employee of a major portal to pitch me on “BT” in the last 2 weeks (albeit Madsen’s was an indirect pitch). Clearly, BT is all the rage in the portal community and it’s a race to see which portal player gets the most companies onto their proprietary system.
But, before we all run out and sign deals with the portals in an attempt to be one of these “smartest” players let’s do a quick review of what exactly is being proposed so we can make a marketing decision that is best for our companies and not for one that is best for the portals.
Category: Privacy Issues
Remember “those old American Express commercials”:http://youtube.com/watch?v=ABwy2nFh1Vo&search=american%20express created by “Ogilvy and Mather”:http://www.ogilvy.com, ‘Don’t leave home without it?’ Well the same could be said about those identity checkers you see on blogs and websites, otherwise known as captchas. Captcha? Did somebody sneeze?
In all seriousness, thanks to “Mitch Joel”:http://www.onedegree.ca/category/mitch-joel for telling me the proper name. (It looks so much more professional when speaking to the IT department and saying ‘Please implement a captcha for our upcoming viral contest’ as opposed to ‘Can you put in one of those identity checker thing-a-majiggers into our online form.’)
Actually, “CAPTCHA”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.
The short version is that it prevents hackers, scam artists and other filthy mcnasties out there from easily running bots or scripts on online services. Whether it be completing online registration forms for web-based emails so they can spam you later or targeting online contests so they can stack the odds of winning in their favour.
This CAPTCHA of “smwm” obscures its message from computer interpretation by twisting the letters and adding a background color gradient.
A recent “Globe and Mail article on Cyber-Safety”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060508.gtonline08/BNStory/Technology/ for children has me concerned. Seems that parents are being advised by Lianna McDonald to use the ole’ “lock down” approach to managing their children’s Internet activities.
As a psychotherapist and parenting expert, it has always been my advice to prepare children for life rather than protect them from it. When we use our adult power to control children we invite rebellion, deceit, sneaking and lying. Parents impose rigid rules in an attempt to regain control of their children when they feel they are losing control. Ironically, by trying to re-gain control in this manner, we actually loose it further!
Many parents today do have an inferior knowledge to their children when it comes to the Net. Their fear is only further fuelled by scary media articles that magnify the rare but extreme case such things as child murderers.
Perhaps better a action step for concerned parents is to share the educative process with their children. Learn together where the potential threats lie. Work collaboratively to set mutual guidelines that incorporate what you have been learning about Net safety together.
Why?