• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 31, 2011

The bad news is that the online industry is bracing for a massive wave of consumer's opting out of having their online behavior data tracked. The good news, is that the effectiveness of the industry's self-regulatory solution enabling them to do that isn't that great. In fact, it's probably not going to be much more effective than online advertising itself.

That was one of the comforting scenarios that Scott Meyer, CEO of Evidon, gave this morning during his presentation on the industry's Open Data Partnership, which among other things will alert consumers about their ability to opt-out of tracking via Evidon's icon.

"Is there any reason to believe that an icon above an ad on page is going to be higher than the ad itself," Meyer said, alluding to the relatively low clickthrough rates that the average online display ad generates.

In other words, the crappy clickthrough rates among consumers will actually benefit the industry, because consumers simply won't click on the icon to opt out.

"There is no reason to fear the opt out," Meyer proclaimed. "Consumers are not going to opt out en masse?"