Internet privacy, anyone?
It is crazy that third-party cookies are the reason why the shoes I looked at three weeks ago are still stalking me around the web. Whether this is a good thing or a bad one I believe depends on who is asking the question.
Recent debates about internet privacy have intensified with many governments looking to legislate laws to curb how much personal information websites and social sites collect. This has forced many companies to come up with new ways to try and reduce individual data collection. For instance, Google plans to ban third-party tracking cookies in 2023. Apple, on the other hand, has an update of its iOS that allows users to block their IP address thus eliminating tracking together. While these laws and changes may appear to protect our privacy, we need not forget that just like any other thing, it has its pros and cons. These are uncharted waters we are navigating and we need to treat them as so. Nobody really knows what the outcome will be but we can guess the consequences.
Good things
Many good things are likely to come out of this privacy regulation both to users like me and the marketer. As a user, I am always concerned about my privacy when I visit the internet. Who isn’t? Who collects my private data and what they use it for is of great concern to me. I believe that users deserve to be aware of and in control of how their personal information is collected, shared, tracked, and used.
It is thus a good thing that these measures offer a reset button for users to fight back against violations of these privacy rights. These regulations also protect users from unethical targeted marketing. There are many times I have had to impulse buy a watch or phone I did not need just because of how many times it popped on my screen. These pop-up ads basically follow you wherever you go on the internet. What if this was a real person following you wherever you go asking you to buy things you do not need? Am sure many people would quickly find it unbearable. Why should this be any different just because it is a bunch of codes? Think of vulnerable groups such as people with mental illness, people with dementia, and children. How many unnecessary purchases do they make due to these individual tracking technologies? It is a relief that these regulations will help protect users from aggressive marketers.
Bad ones
Like every other thing, these regulations are also likely to have cons too. To the user, they may have to pay for using the internet in one way or another. We commonly say that the internet was built by advertisements and the price we had to pay was our privacy. Change this price and you have to replace it with something. Yes, as users we want our privacy untouched but we cannot eat our cake and have it. We have to trade something. Marketers will have to charge users each time they log in to use some of their services which have otherwise been free. It would not be surprising to pay a subscription fee to watch certain videos on YouTube or access certain features in Facebook which have always been free. Marketers will have the biggest price to pay. Most of them, especially the small startups, may soon go out of business since their lifeblood has been sucked out. These firms rely on targeted ads made possible by data collected from the internet to make revenue. Stop this and you kill them. Yes, a few giant players such as google will survive but this only creates another problem, giant monopolies. Companies such as Google have become so big, they can just about absorb any shock in the market. By effectively killing smaller firms, we equally effectively install a few dominant players. What a dramatic irony.
All said and done, I strongly believe that privacy regulation is something we must install and protect. With advancements in technology such as facial recognition, who knows what monster this problem could turn into within the next few decades. We may never be able to control it at some point. We better tame it while it's young. This is one of those necessary “evil” we must invite. The marketers may suffer some casualties but who knows, there may be calm after the storm. The greed for profits and financial gain should not be traded with human decency and integrity.
