NP A little Privacy Rant (long)

[JEANNIE BERNIER]

Sorry, all these advertising messages have me stewing.  My pet peeve is all
this hullabaloo about INTERNET PRIVACY.  So I feel the need to express my
frustration with the "media" and their representation of same, and why not
inflict it on the P-List?  Why not, indeed, when they have inflicted so much
on me - 

How marketing tracking (internet and otherwise) really works:

Scenario 1:  Bob goes to Yahoo.  Bob sees a banner ad for Joe's Golf
Emporium.  Bob clicks on the banner ad.  This banner ad was served by
Double-Click.  Bob is transferred over to Joe's Golf Emporium, where a
cookie gets placed on his computer.  This cookie contains his IP address.
Bob decides Joe's Golf Emporium is a big ripoff so he leaves without buying
anything.  

Q:  What does Joe's Golf Emporium now know about Bob?
A:  Abso-f*cking-lutely nothing, other than his IP address, which may or may
not be consistent from session to session, and maybe the fact that he came
from Yahoo, because that's the address in the referral URL.

Scenario 2:  Same as Scenario 1, only this time, Bob decides to buy a club.
Joe's Golf Emporium has him fill out a form, takes his credit card info, and
promises to ship him the club.  Which they do right on time.

Q:  Now what does Joe's Golf Emporium know about Bob?
A:  Well, let's see, they know his name and address, so they could
potentially use that to append census and compiled demographics to his
record.  Provided he matches one of the big demographic databases
(www.experian.com, www.acxiom.com) then they now know his income
(notoriously unreliable!)  the fact that he's got children (based on the
fact that the majority of the people in his neighborhood have children.
Bob's really impotent.)  And his age.   Maybe what kind of car he's driving.
And that's about it.  Oh yeah, and his email address, which will probably be
obsolete before the year is out.  So now they can send him annoying junk
mail at home, and send him emails at work.

They may also be able to look at the log files, find his username, and know
that he came from Yahoo, he looked at 14 different clubs before he bought
one, and then he left the site.  Notice, once Bob leaves the site, he
disappears from the log files, so the only company that might know the next
site Bob visits is a pornographic one is the porn proprieter themselves.
Because porn sites charge money to look at the pictures.  And maybe if the
porn prorprieter sees enough people coming from golf sites, they can devise
a marketing program that places banner ads on golf sites.  Oooh, sinister! 

Scenario 3:  Bob sees an ad on TV for Viagra.  Bob is impressed with Bob
Dole's honesty and frankness, and hey, look, they have the same name!  Bob
calls the number on the screen and requests a free information kit.

Q:  What does Pfizer know about Bob?
A:  Well, they know Bob's name and address, so they can do everything that
Joe's Golf Emporium can.  They also know, by the phone number that Bob
called, that he saw the Viagra ad on TNT.  By the timestamp on the phone
call, they know that Bob saw the ad at 10:35 pm, so they know the ad ran in
the 10:30 to 11:00 pm time slot.

Final Scenario:  Pfizer sends Bob his free information kit, with a rebate
incentive to go to his doctor and get a prescription for Viagra.  Bob uses
this coupon at the Pharmacy.  This coupon is keycoded with an identifier
that links to Bob.  

Q:  Now what does Pfizer know about Bob.
A:  They know he got a prescription for Viagra, a product they make and sell
and have a vested interest in selling more of.  They know this because Bob
used his coupon.  Voluntarily.  Now they can list Bob in their loyalty
program, send him more coupons, cute refrigerator magnets, autographed
pictures of Bob Dole boinking Liz - the fun never stops.  They don't know
anything about his medical condition, or what other prescriptions he has,
because that information is NOT AVAILABLE to marketers.  It's regulated.  It
is available to insurers in aggregate form, so they can keep tabs on
prescription prices.  And you're only in that database if you use one of the
giant pharmacy chains.

The moral of the story - they know a lot less about you on the internet than
anywhere else.  And what they know elsewhere ain't much.  But the "media"
(ooh, I have to find a new word!)  has us believe that corporations know our
high school math grades, that we had a skin cancer scare last year, that we
have $4.36 in our bank account, etc. etc.  It just isn't so.  Mostly what
corporations know about you is the stuff you tell them, and most ethical
organizations have policies to prevent abuse of internal information.
Caveat Emptor prevails as always.

Yes there have been documented cases of hacker's stealing credit card
numbers from online sites, and that's a security problem that must be
addressed.  But think about this the next time you call LL Bean and order up
some of those neato rubber boots - who's taking your credit card number on
the other end of that phone?  Do you know them?  Can you vouch that they're
not going to use your number to buy a new fur coat off the internet later
that evening?  

JB