Customers to Cover E-Tracks

Businesses that rely on Web marketing are in for a rude awakening this year as anti-tracking technology begins crippling their ability to track visitor activity on their own Web sites and Internet wide.

Commonly known as "Do-Not-Track," the technology makes it tougher for businesses to monitor site visitors and their activity. And that has some NH businesses concerned. "If 50 percent of visitors to a Web site are using this technology, then they are essentially invisible and are omitted from the actual data. This gives us an inaccurate depiction of a Web site's overall traffic and visitor activity," says Jenn Marcelais, owner of Soul Oyster Web Studios, a Portsmouth firm that offers custom Web design, graphics, SEO search engine optimization and Internet marketing services.

Indeed, visitor data is critical to the Web analytics programs currently running on virtually all commercial Web sites, which slice and dice visitor information to continually make Web sites more user friendly and effective. The backlash is also expected to make it more difficult for companies to advertise on other Web sites-such as Facebook-as Do-Not-Track features on newer browsers make it impossible to target ads based on Web use.

The actual fallout hinges on whether or not a significant number of Web users begin activating anti-tracking options. Marcelais believes that if the general public embraces Do-Not-Track, the effect could be substantial, forcing the advertising industry to recreate once again how it works online.

Disappearing Tracks?

For years, Web users have been at once charmed and creeped-out by a Web site's ability to serve up content and ads specific to their interests. What's needed now, says Link Moser, owner of Windhill Design, a Web design studio in Loudon, is balance. "Obviously tools like Google Analytics are fairly widespread and adopted by many Web site owners," he says. "There needs to be a balance between privacy concerns and the ability for site owners to track user data to improve the user experience."

One of the greatest blows to visitor tracking will come from Microsoft, which plans to offer a powerful Do-Not-Track feature in the next version of its browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), due out this year. The technology must be turned on and enables the browser to block companies a user wants to avoid. Once released, a master Do-Not-Track list for IE9 is expected to be available for download by privacy advocacy groups, which identify and monitor firms known to track Web site visitors. Users will also be able to create their own Do-Not-Track lists, or edit existing lists.

Microsoft's approach is especially potent. Unlike other technologies, the feature does not rely on offending companies agreeing to "cease-and-desist" when alerted by a user's browser. Instead, any company on a user's list is simply prevented from tracking the user's activity when Tracking Protection is on.

All told, the backlash against tracking is in its early stages. And Moser says it's likely most Web users won't activate Microsoft's technology. "I would be surprised to see a large number of users proactively turning this on and blocking Web sites," he says. "I think people tend to use browsers at their default configuration."

Still, visitor tracking is also under attack by the Federal Trade Commission, which released a report in December (www.ftc.gov/os/2010/12/101201privacyreport.pdf) advocating the technology's use Web-wide. One of the reasons the FTC has been so tenacious is that few Web users realize just how pervasive monitoring has become. One company may have an ad running on the visited site, another may have a script program that activates upon entry, and a third may begin tracking a visitor after a certain image loads.

The Future

The advertising industry prefers self-regulation to marching orders from the Feds. "The industry needs to adhere to best practices that were prescribed clearly by the FTC in its Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising," says Scott Meyer, CEO of Evidon, a New York-based agency trade group selected as the first provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising by the Digital Advertising Alliance. "But doing so does not extend to the creation of an Internet-advertising version of the Do Not Call list."

Besides emboldening privacy advocates, the FTC's position has also been championed by the nonprofit Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser. Harvey Anderson, Mozilla's general counsel, says the company is encouraged by the FTC's support for privacy controls and transparent user choice.

In Washington Senator John Kerry and Congressman Ed Markey are on board too, promising to introduce bills that would curtail the ability to monitor a person's Web activity without permission. Markey's primary concern is cloaking children's activity online.

The momentum is clearly with online privacy advocates. "Most businesses that come to New Hampshire Web Design expect a significant source of revenue from the marketing data that their Web site collects," says James Kennedy, owner of New Hampshire Web Design, based in Londonderry. "If these companies cannot depend on marketing data as a source of revenue, business plans will need to change and entrepreneurs will need to find other sources of revenue to replace what is lost-i.e., charging fees or requiring users to make a purchase to receive free services."

Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan. He can be reached at 646-233-4089, joe@joedysart.com, or by visiting www.joedysart.com.