If some mainstream press reporting is to be believed, online corporate evil is spreading its net far and wide and like the eye of Sauron will soon seek you out and make you its slave. The reality is that cookies have been used online for years and very few people have been adversely affected by them when used in a reputable fashion by reputable websites. Whilst I’m not advocating the stockpiling of online user data and the auctioning off of our privacy I also think that a measured approach is necessary in curbing the use of cookie technology. Opting in to every advert shown would be more annoying to the user than the ads themselves and blocking access to certain sites because you don’t want the tailored ads would also be OTT.
So what’s the alternative? Well you could have a paid for internet as a development of the UK TV license system which would be about as popular as socks with sandals or users will have to use web browsers to make decisions for them regarding access allowed by cookies to track their movements and behaviour. This would be one business making decisions about another business having access to a user; no chance of corporate politics there then! The reality is that the simplest thing to do would probably be not to target ads to users at all. This won’t mean there are less ads shown to users, as seems to be the general view, it just means that users would see as many if not more ads that are less relevant and arguably more annoying than the targeted ads that went before them. Nothing like a conservative 80 year old seeing a FHM ad targeted at 20 something lads to set blood pressures skyward!
To help reach a reasoned view of cookies and their use I think it would be beneficial for the general public to receive more information and education about how they work therefore allowing people to make their own decisions. At the moment I feel that most users think cookies are evil and so are the companies, not forgetting governments, that use them. Not that I’m totally in favour of cookies as such, please don’t get that Idea, I’m just not convinced that the current proposed solutions would be beneficial for business or consumers.
Once an acceptable technological solution is found I’m sure the furore will soon die down and ‘normality’ will be restored, but until this time remember as the worldly wise Mark Knopfler said ‘Get your email for nothing and your clicks for free’ kind of….
Bodhi Morrison
Head of Digital
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