The Real Cookie Monster

So you get home, lock your door and you think you’re safe, right?  Whether you’re doing homework, checking your bank account or updating your status on Facebook, many of us spend countless hours at home logged online.  

Most of us don’t think twice about what we do on the internet. What may seem like an innocent visit to that website, ultimately may lead to a long trail of information for the outside to follow.

Behavioral advertising follows consumer’s tracks to bring them advertising they think will catch their attention based off what they’ve researched online. From a business perspective, following consumer’s online footsteps could be seen as a great way to promote a particular product or service to a unique group of people. On the contrary, however, many can also see this as an invasion of privacy because it allows a third party to track where you’ve been online and, more often than not, unbeknownst to the consumer.

A program rolling out this year (Understanding Online Advertising) can help protect consumers from being tracked online. This initiative will allow companies to place an icon near their advertisements and is designed to educate you on privacy controls, cookies, and will give the consumer the ability to opt out of having their browsing history tracked.

But will this work? While most of us barely click on advertisements to begin with, how can we be expected to learn more about something if this is the only solution? I wouldn’t relate this icon to privacy controls, would you? 

While most of us think of a cookie as something we pick up at the local bakery, we should better educate ourselves on cookies and online privacy controls and think twice before you click.