As mentioned in my previous post “Giving up cookies for a new internet… The third age of targeting is at your door.“, I have attended the fourth Measure Camp in London (http://www.measurecamp.org), on March 29th. And my (voluntarily controversial) topic has been: “Web Analytics without cookies?”
The subject has been introduced by the following three charts, a short introduction to what I expected to be a discussion, and a hot one it has been!
Basically, the discussion has been getting around three topics:
- Are really cookies going to disappear, and if yes which ones and how?
- Are cookies disapproved by the users because of their lack of privacy or rather because of some all-too aggressive third-party cookie strategies?
- Are there any solutions, and when do we need them at last?
Topic number 1 definitely is the most controversial. It already is difficult to imagine how to deal without what has been the basics of collection, targeting and analysis. On top of this, some valid objections also have been given, such as the necessity to keep first-party cookies for a decent browsing experience as well as the request from a fair share of the users to keep ads, providing they were relevant to them. A very good follow-up has been brought by James Sandoval (Twitter: @checkyourfuel) and the BrightTag team. Thanks to them for their inputs.
Clearly, the participants were all agreeing that a cookie ban would only impact third-party ones, and occur for political reasons (maybe not before 3 to 5 years), lest a huge privacy scandal ignites an accelerated decision process. Still, a fair amount of the internet revenue would then be imperiled.
At this stage, there still remains the acceptance of cookies by the users. There is a wide consensus within the digital community that people browsing the internet accept a reasonable amount of cookie intrusion in their lives, should this generate relevant ads. Actually, I think this view is biased, as nobody has ever asked whether people would rather browse with or without ads… The question always has been between”wild” and “reasoned” ad targeting… It reminds me of an oil company asking if car drivers would rather tank diesel or lead-free, not allowing “electricity” as a valid answer…
So the question of cookie acceptance remains open in my eyes, and this may be a key driver to designing alternative solutions.
What options do we have at hand then?
The first and blatant one is a better regulation of third-party cookies, especially the ability of the user to master how, when and with whom their first-party cookies could and should be shared in an opt-in mode. The law (in the EU) theoretically rules this (see EU rules about cookie consent here), through a warning to the user about cookies, when he or she opens a new website. Still, national transcriptions and various ways of web page developments have made this law non-understandable, and mostly not actionable on a global basis.
A first step would then be to abide by the user’s choice, and give him the ability to manage his or her own cookies, sharing some, all or none of them with third-parties, as they wish. A difficult task, especially when nearly 30 government bodies are to be implied… So why not investigate non-cookie options?
In London, I have introduced two possible ways:
- Create a unique Id for each user, somewhat like Google’s unique Id, but managed by an independent body. My suggestion is that such an Id should belong to the whole community, like HTML or HTTP… A huge task.
- The other idea is mine… It would consist of the generation of anonymized profiles, based on browsing patterns. This idea I shall develop more in detail in future posts, but the idea is worth thinking, especially when one imagines that today’s user mood may not be tomorrow’s, and require a very dynamic targeting methodology…
So this hot discussion on cookies at least has initiated discussions among the digital community. It also proved that such fresh (and sometimes idealistic) views as mine are necessary to keep the digital community staying on the edge of innovation. So stay tuned, I shall go on providing food for thought so as to “shake the tree” of Measurement…
Data Elicitation 