Research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the
Berkeley Centre for Law and Technology has found that 66% of adult
US citizens do not want advertising to be tailored to what
advertisers think are their interests.
Advertisers and publishers have grown increasingly likely to
track web users' behaviour and to try to show them adverts that
they think will be more relevant to them. Analysing relevance
depends on the tracking of behaviour, which has raised questions of
web users' rights to privacy.
The survey has found that two thirds of US web users do not want
this to happen. It also found that once it explained the actual
methods used to track behaviour that figure rose even higher, to
between 73% and 86% after three common tactics were explained to
them.
Publishers keen to increase advertising revenue and advertisers
have claimed that tracking that does not identify users by name is
acceptable to most people because of the benefits that accrue from
being shown more relevant ads. "To marketers, it is self-evident
that consumers want customized commercial messages," the academics'
report says. The survey's data appear to refute that argument.
"Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans
(66%) do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their
interests," said the study. "We conducted this survey to determine
which view Americans hold. In high percentages, they stand on the
side of privacy advocates." "That is the case even among young
adults whom advertisers often portray as caring little about
information privacy," it said. "Our survey did find that younger
American adults are less likely to say no to tailored advertising
than are older ones."
Other surveys have been conducted, but the academics from
California and Pennsylvania said that they used methodologies that
rendered their results less useful than their own study. The new
study was based on phone interviews with 1,000 randomly-selected
people which was weighted using census data to be nationally
representative.
The study also found that even when tailored ads come with
discounts or specially fashioned news, a majority do not want their
web use to be tracked. Surveyed people also overwhelmingly backed
legislating further to protect web users.
"69% of American adults feel there should be a law that gives
people the right to know everything that a website knows about
them; 92% agree there should be a law that requires websites and
advertising companies to delete all stored information about an
individual, if requested to do so; [and] 63% believe advertisers
should be required by law to immediately delete information about
their internet activity," the report said.
Companies that track web use often claim that the tracking is
anonymous because a user's name is not discovered or stored.
Privacy advocates argue that some of the data that is gathered,
such as the internet protocol (IP) address of a person's internet
connection, is inherently personal and that its gathering and
storage is no longer anonymous.
But the new study found that even if anonymity could be
guaranteed, web users would still reject tracking and ad
tailoring.
"Assurance of anonymous tracking doesn’t seem to lower
Americans’ concerns about behavioral targeting," it said. "They are
quite negative when it comes to the general scenario of free
content supported by tailored advertising that results from
'following the websites you visit and the content you look at' in a
manner that keeps them anonymous. 68% definitely would not allow
it, and 19% would probably not allow it. 10% would probably allow,
and only 2% would definitely do it; 1% say they don’t know what
they would do."
The strength of web users' feeling about the issue is reflected
in the fact that 35% of them said that executives whose firms use
information illegally should face jail time.
"This survey’s findings support the proposition that consumers
should have a substantive right to reject behavioral targeting and
its underlying practices," said the report.
Want to know more? OUT-LAW is running free
seminars in October on Behavioural
advertising and the law. The events take place in London,
Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
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