Online Tracking Takes Another Twist

There’s no doubt that if you’ve invested heavily in social media marketing or search engine optimized content as your interactive marketing vehicle of choice, you need to be sure you’re on top of all the metrics that will give you a clear advantage in deciding what’s working and what isn’t.

A new survey by the Ponemon Institute is shining a new light on what’s becoming a hot button topic in the world of Internet advertising—namely the fact that technology exists for businesses and others to use online tracking as a way of looking at trends when it comes to consumer preferences. Now although this technique is highly useful from the industry standpoint, it has raised some privacy issues in the past.
 

Still, like most other things there doesn’t seem to be any clear black and white areas when it comes to online tracking; or if there are, the ever changing landscape of technology seems to blur them constantly. To the point:
 

Fraud prevention provider ThreatMetrix has just released some information that points to the fact 85% of consumers are worried about the perception that online businesses don’t provide enough protection to ensure safe transactions on the Internet. That idea slows the emerging attitude toward online purchases.
 

However, the same research shows that, under the right circumstances, these folks were willing to do their part to help lessen fraud. For example, 88% were willing to give up the serial number of their computer and 71% were willing to part with their browser settings. Most of the people surveyed felt it was okay for business to track them for fraud prevention, but the survey also went on to say a great majority don’t report what they perceive to be this activity when they have fallen prey to it. Of the 42% that said they had fallen victim to online fraud, 80% said they didn’t report it.