Tracking consumers’ online behavior is like dating, says Cathy Dwyer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Computer Science and Information Systems at Pace University, in so many words. As with the courting process, too aggressive an approach — “Hello, How are you, Let me track you” — is likely to scare away your, er, target. “That is not the way to do it,” she says. Rather, marketers need to ask themselves, “How do you engage consumers in a deeper way?” The key is to take it slow, and keep it honest by maintaining total transparency.

At least according to Dwyer, most consumers don’t mind being tracked as long as they understand what exactly is going on. "A lot of my students are women shopping alone in their bedroom." Therefore, finding out on their own that they're being tracked in that context will most likely result in a sense of "being violated."

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