• by Seana Mulcahy , November 5, 2007

So I was visiting with my grandmother yesterday and the phone kept ringing off the hook.She ran to answer the phone many times, then got mad and slammed the phone down. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "These damn people keep calling me to buy stuff. I don't know how the heck they got my number."

Thinking about how this upset her really gave me a different perspective on some of our industry. If you are reading this, you are probably like me: a person who doesn't answer the phone unless she screens caller ID. Maybe you use a private or blocked number. I myself never answer those. But I, unlike Nana, can actually see the numbers on caller ID.

Sure this is an offline scenario and one that we are used to. However, what most consumers aren't used to is how they're tracked by us and and the company we keep By no means is Nana online but there are many Netizens that aren't too savvy online.

Have you heard about the "Do Not Track List" fueled by consumer advocates that want the government to make it much harder for online advertisers to monitor and track online users? It also takes a stab at behavioral targeting. It seems like a step in the right direction, as it relates to consumer protection at first glance. However, dig deeper and you'll find most consumers are absolutely clueless. If they don't know if or how they are being tracked, then how might they implore this?

Some say this move could create a serious backlash. Adoption of the list could result in some unintended consequences that consumers may also find offputting. For one, a Do Not Track list could actually increase the volume of online ads, according to Web advertising companies. Why, you ask? Well this models the same offline concept of the Do Not Call list, but as you know it is not an offline medium.

When consumers sign up for the Do Not Call list they are not to receive any calls from anyone trying to solicit them. The Do Not Track List has been designed to allow a user to sign up online. There is no guarantee that users will not see ads. Instead, they will not see ads targeted to their behavior and online activities.

This could cause quite the fallout to our beloved industry. Think about it -- untargeted ads don't cost as much. Publishers would have to load up on such ads in order to offset prices of those targeted ads lost (or mandated) as a result of the list. The whole value of online advertising could go down.

Nowadays we have quite a bit of ad-supported media. In a nutshell, users agree to view ads relevant to them in order to receive content, etc. either subsidized or free. It's a bargain Americans are more than used to.

Consumers have demonstrated that they are more willing to go to free, ad-supported Web sites than to pay for access to sites. Take news sites, for example. The Wall Street Journal Online, one of the most successful paid sites on the Web, has about 1 million subscribers, while the number of registered users for New York Times' free site is more than 10 times that number, according to BusinessWeek. The willingness of consumers to see more ads, rather than pay subscription fees, is the chief reason the majority of Web sites rely on advertising.

So where does this put ad-supported sites or ad networks, for that matter? How 'bout the surge of popularity among social networks and free email? My guess is that most of these publishers and tools providers tend to be less than transparent, with a what-they-don't-know-won't-hurt-them mentality. Sorry, guys, but it's true.

I'm afraid this writer does not have a solution at this time. However, I think that we all need to take some online responsibility and clearly state privacy policies -- at a minimum.