According to a new survey, two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking and object even more after being told exactly how they are being tracked. The survey comes as lawmakers are increasingly looking into online tracking due to privacy concerns.
The survey, according to The New York Times, was based on interviews with 1,000 adult internet users and came from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. The researchers said it represented the first independent, nationally representative telephone survey on behavioral advertising.
According to the survey, 66 percent of respondents indicated that tailored ads in general did not appeal to them. Then they were told how ads tracked them at company websites, and followed them to other websites and offline places like stores.
After being told, another seven percent beyond the initial 66 percent said it was "not O.K." to be tracked by a company's website. Another 18 percent said it was "not O.K." to be followed to other websites. And an additional 20 percent were "not O.K." with being tracked offline.
A critical finding, according to the professors, was that 55 percent of respondents from 18 to 24 objected to tailored online advertising.
"We sometimes think that the younger adults in the United States don't care about this stuff, and I would suggest that's an exaggeration," Professor Joseph Turow, lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times.
In other areas, 49 percent of respondents said tailored discounts were "O.K." and 42 percent said customized news was fine.
The survey also found that the respondents knew little about privacy laws regarding the internet.
Asked whether there should be a law that gave people the right to know everything a website knew about them, 69 percent said "Yes." A whopping 92 percent supported a hypothetical law requiring websites and advertising companies to delete all information about an individual upon request.
The professors suggested that the first step is to explain to consumers how they are being targeted online.
"I don't think that behavioral targeting is something that we should eliminate, but I do think that we're at a cusp of a new era, and the kinds of information that companies share and have today is nothing like we'll see 10 years from now," Prof. Turow said.
Discussion Question: To what degree will privacy concerns affect the potential to reach consumers through online advertising? Should advertisers be clearer in how they are tracking consumers? What type of tracking do you ultimately expect will be accepted by consumers?