Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Are Cookies Evil? What Service Do Cookies Perform In A Web Browser?
They cookies are bad and make invade your privacy? We are not talking about the kind of cookie eating, we are talking about computer crackers! It is not true that cookies are bad. So what is a cookie, what is fact and what does it do? A cookie is a small text file that a Web site can place on the team as they navigate the pages of this site. One of the things people do not understand is that a Web site can only read and write their own cookies, which are unable to access another website cookies. Cookies are used to store information on a variety of topics, such as a name, a selection or choice. This information is read again from the time they start other pages on the site, or, in visits to the site. What reason is a Web site need to use cookies? Web Browsers are stateless, statelessness means that as through several pages of a site, each of those pages is a separate and distinct. For example, the web server does not know which is the same person who was in the home who made the request for the order page. This is very different from desktop applications like Microsoft Excel that you run on your computer. The web server by visiting all applications as individual requests for pages, not like a visit from you. As you move through a website and select things and make decisions, thus avoiding the repetition of that re-enter or select the information you load each page? Usually, the answer is a cookie. A cookie can be used by the web server to track as a user so that when you navigate from page A to B, the web server knows that you and the developer of the website can be stored in reference articles In its cookie maintain a state of the experience for its session or visit the website. Sometimes, you may want or need to delete cookies. You can delete cookies in several ways. Most web browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, etc.) have different ways to do this, check your browser& 39;s help on how to clear the cache files and cookies. There are also several software packages for the PC and clean these packages also delete cookies. The use of cookies improving its user experience when browsing the Internet. Is there a security risk or danger to cookies? A site may use cookies to store information you enter in forms on web pages, and that& 39;s where security issues arise. Usually this will never cause any problems, however, before letting someone use your computer, or having your computer in any repair or services provided clear the cache and cookies! Each browser is different, so check with your help files for the browser using (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, etc.) so as to remove the cache files and cookies.
Web Analytics – Why they are important. -UK View- December 11, 2007
The advent of Google analytics was for most web users a fantastic way to track and monitor website activity free of charge. This piece of software was created after Google purchased the Urchin Software Corp in April 2005. Demand was so high when Google launched Google Analytics that they soon suspended applications and created an invitation only model.
For what it is, a free analytics package it cannot be faulted. How can you complain about something that is free? Well I’m going to try….For webmasters who do not engage is any form of online marketing, be it PPC, Affiliates, OMP, then Google analytics will suit you just fine. You can monitor conversions, bounce rates, traffic, the list is endless. All very well and good, but it does have its limitations. I am always staggered as to why companies will spend thousands on media but pennies on analytics. To accompany Analytics, Google also launched Google Adwords tracking, a very simple and basic way of tracking PPC campaigns.
Here are some of limitations of using both of these packages..
• People delete cookies (upto 30% according to some estimates). Some advanced tracking packages such as E-tracker have ways round this by tracking a pixel. I know when I started using it the recorded conversions increased dramatically.
• There is no customer support for Google Analytics, all there appears to be is qualified companies who charge extortionate hourly rates for assistance.
• Ad block software will often block the Urchin tracker.
• Users may not have a JavaScript enabled browser.
• The data can be incomplete – often I see hundreds of clicks from the keyword “(not set)” meaning Google has not been able to resolve what the keyword was.
• You cannot see users journeys, for example a user will often come back to a site on different keywords but the conversion is always attributed to the last keyword, often the brand term. This distorts the value of your PPC campaign and it makes generic keywords look overly expensive.
• You cannot integrate different marketing channels in Google . For example if you are running an OMP campaign, a user may click a banner ad, then later click a PPC ad, then perhaps later come through the brand term on natural search. A decent analytics package can track these kinds of user journeys. By doing this you can optimise each marketing channel.
If you are spending £50 a day on Adwords for example then clearly it is not worth spending £500 a month on an analytics package. But if you are spending big sums on money, particularly across the various marketing channels, then it is well worth investing in a decent web analytics package.
For what it is, a free analytics package it cannot be faulted. How can you complain about something that is free? Well I’m going to try….For webmasters who do not engage is any form of online marketing, be it PPC, Affiliates, OMP, then Google analytics will suit you just fine. You can monitor conversions, bounce rates, traffic, the list is endless. All very well and good, but it does have its limitations. I am always staggered as to why companies will spend thousands on media but pennies on analytics. To accompany Analytics, Google also launched Google Adwords tracking, a very simple and basic way of tracking PPC campaigns.
Here are some of limitations of using both of these packages..
• People delete cookies (upto 30% according to some estimates). Some advanced tracking packages such as E-tracker have ways round this by tracking a pixel. I know when I started using it the recorded conversions increased dramatically.
• There is no customer support for Google Analytics, all there appears to be is qualified companies who charge extortionate hourly rates for assistance.
• Ad block software will often block the Urchin tracker.
• Users may not have a JavaScript enabled browser.
• The data can be incomplete – often I see hundreds of clicks from the keyword “(not set)” meaning Google has not been able to resolve what the keyword was.
• You cannot see users journeys, for example a user will often come back to a site on different keywords but the conversion is always attributed to the last keyword, often the brand term. This distorts the value of your PPC campaign and it makes generic keywords look overly expensive.
• You cannot integrate different marketing channels in Google . For example if you are running an OMP campaign, a user may click a banner ad, then later click a PPC ad, then perhaps later come through the brand term on natural search. A decent analytics package can track these kinds of user journeys. By doing this you can optimise each marketing channel.
If you are spending £50 a day on Adwords for example then clearly it is not worth spending £500 a month on an analytics package. But if you are spending big sums on money, particularly across the various marketing channels, then it is well worth investing in a decent web analytics package.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Consumer Advocates Seek a ‘Do-Not-Track’ List
By LOUISE STORY
A coalition of privacy groups asked the government today to set up a mandatory do-not-track list for the Internet.
The groups — which include the Consumer Federation of America, World Privacy Forum and several others — are worried that online advertising companies are collecting too much data about consumers’ Web habits.
For a few years, advertisers have been using information about what Web sites people visit to deliver ads to them later on. The practice is called behavioral targeting, and the Federal Trade Commission is hosting a forum tomorrow and Friday about the privacy issues it raises.
While advertisers often say that consumers like receiving ads that are relevant to them rather than generic, privacy advocates say that most people do not realize the amount of personal information they are sharing with marketers.
“I think this is about consumer knowledge and choice,” said Leslie Harris, president and chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in an interview.
“A consumer can choose to say, ‘I don’t care that they have all this information about me. These ads are valuable to me,’ but a consumer should also be able to say, ‘I don’t want them to have all that information,’” said Ms. Harris, whose organization is among the nine groups asking for the do-not-track list.
A do-not-track list would not reduce the number of ads people see on Web sites. Instead, people who signed up for the service would simply see ads that are not specialized for them, since advertisers would not be using the consumers’ recent history on the Web to surmise their interests.
The consumer groups also want the government to redefine what information is considered to be personally identifiable to include behavior online, in instances when Web searches can be traced to an individual person.
Executives from several of the groups involved in the do-not-track initiative will speak at the F.T.C.’s forum alongside executives from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and the AOL unit of Time Warner. This morning, AOL announced a boost in its own opt-out system, and executives there said other online advertising companies should follow its lead.
AOL will be running a public education campaign in the coming months to inform Web users about the upside of behavioral targeting, which includes getting offers for products and services that could potentially be helpful or appealing.
It has been eight years since the F.T.C. drilled down into the privacy implications of online advertising. Last year, the agency held a technology forum and pinpointed behavioral targeting as a major problem area. Since then, there have been a number of high-profile acquisitions of advertising technology companies that have put more of the data into fewer hands. Among those are Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive, a company that owns the ad-delivery company Atlas, and Google’s proposed deal to purchase DoubleClick, another ad-delivery company. The F.T.C. is still evaluating the Google deal, but it is studying it for antitrust implications rather than privacy concerns.
The assumption in online advertising has been that consumers will opt-out of tracking if they do not like it, but most advertising networks’ opt-out policies are difficult to follow and find. And consumers who delete cookies — small bits of text sent from users computers to servers — after signing up for an opt-out policy sometimes delete their opt-out choice along with the cookies.
“We have really moved to a world where we say consumers need to police the market, and, increasingly, it is a harder world to police,” said Martin Abrams, executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership, a think tank within the law firm Hunton & Williams that is financed by companies like Microsoft, Best Buy and Google.
The coalition of privacy groups also called for a system of disclosure notices on Internet ads, which would be required to notify consumers if behavioral tracking was involved. The groups also want companies to show consumers the profiles they are building about them, upon request.
The do-not-track list would be a comprehensive list of the servers of advertising companies. Consumers could download the list and use it to change the settings on their Web browsers.
Ms. Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology said her group was mainly concerned with data that online advertising companies store to create user profiles. Some companies, like Google, choose what ads to show people based on the context of what they are searching for or typing about (in Gmail) at that very moment. But Google says it does not store that data.
The F.T.C. has been asked many times to create some kind of a do-not-track list, said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the agency. Ms. Harris said this was the first time that so many privacy and consumer advocacy groups had coalesced around the issue.
“The goal of providing a consumer with advertising that matches their interests is something that provides a lot of value to consumers,” Ms. Harrington said. “But there are questions about whether it may also come with costs that consumers don’t want to pay.”
A coalition of privacy groups asked the government today to set up a mandatory do-not-track list for the Internet.
The groups — which include the Consumer Federation of America, World Privacy Forum and several others — are worried that online advertising companies are collecting too much data about consumers’ Web habits.
For a few years, advertisers have been using information about what Web sites people visit to deliver ads to them later on. The practice is called behavioral targeting, and the Federal Trade Commission is hosting a forum tomorrow and Friday about the privacy issues it raises.
While advertisers often say that consumers like receiving ads that are relevant to them rather than generic, privacy advocates say that most people do not realize the amount of personal information they are sharing with marketers.
“I think this is about consumer knowledge and choice,” said Leslie Harris, president and chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in an interview.
“A consumer can choose to say, ‘I don’t care that they have all this information about me. These ads are valuable to me,’ but a consumer should also be able to say, ‘I don’t want them to have all that information,’” said Ms. Harris, whose organization is among the nine groups asking for the do-not-track list.
A do-not-track list would not reduce the number of ads people see on Web sites. Instead, people who signed up for the service would simply see ads that are not specialized for them, since advertisers would not be using the consumers’ recent history on the Web to surmise their interests.
The consumer groups also want the government to redefine what information is considered to be personally identifiable to include behavior online, in instances when Web searches can be traced to an individual person.
Executives from several of the groups involved in the do-not-track initiative will speak at the F.T.C.’s forum alongside executives from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and the AOL unit of Time Warner. This morning, AOL announced a boost in its own opt-out system, and executives there said other online advertising companies should follow its lead.
AOL will be running a public education campaign in the coming months to inform Web users about the upside of behavioral targeting, which includes getting offers for products and services that could potentially be helpful or appealing.
It has been eight years since the F.T.C. drilled down into the privacy implications of online advertising. Last year, the agency held a technology forum and pinpointed behavioral targeting as a major problem area. Since then, there have been a number of high-profile acquisitions of advertising technology companies that have put more of the data into fewer hands. Among those are Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive, a company that owns the ad-delivery company Atlas, and Google’s proposed deal to purchase DoubleClick, another ad-delivery company. The F.T.C. is still evaluating the Google deal, but it is studying it for antitrust implications rather than privacy concerns.
The assumption in online advertising has been that consumers will opt-out of tracking if they do not like it, but most advertising networks’ opt-out policies are difficult to follow and find. And consumers who delete cookies — small bits of text sent from users computers to servers — after signing up for an opt-out policy sometimes delete their opt-out choice along with the cookies.
“We have really moved to a world where we say consumers need to police the market, and, increasingly, it is a harder world to police,” said Martin Abrams, executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership, a think tank within the law firm Hunton & Williams that is financed by companies like Microsoft, Best Buy and Google.
The coalition of privacy groups also called for a system of disclosure notices on Internet ads, which would be required to notify consumers if behavioral tracking was involved. The groups also want companies to show consumers the profiles they are building about them, upon request.
The do-not-track list would be a comprehensive list of the servers of advertising companies. Consumers could download the list and use it to change the settings on their Web browsers.
Ms. Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology said her group was mainly concerned with data that online advertising companies store to create user profiles. Some companies, like Google, choose what ads to show people based on the context of what they are searching for or typing about (in Gmail) at that very moment. But Google says it does not store that data.
The F.T.C. has been asked many times to create some kind of a do-not-track list, said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the agency. Ms. Harris said this was the first time that so many privacy and consumer advocacy groups had coalesced around the issue.
“The goal of providing a consumer with advertising that matches their interests is something that provides a lot of value to consumers,” Ms. Harrington said. “But there are questions about whether it may also come with costs that consumers don’t want to pay.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)