A new industry group wants to reduce the rights of consumers over files on their computers. The organization, at this point with only 150 "interested" members, has given itself the spin-doctor'ed name of "SafeCount."
"The idea for Safecount.org followed research that showed an increasing number of consumers were regularly deleting cookies from their Web browsers, which greatly diminishes the advertisers and publishers ability to monitor the effectiveness of online advertising or how visitors are using a particular website," reports Antone Gonsalves on TechWeb.
Advertisers are upset that consumers don't want to be tracked. Anything that diminishes a group's ability to monitor others is good for me. The magazine author, unfortunately, takes on the advertisers' side, by describing:
- Cookes as "tiny text files" [true, but tiny is not innocuous, in this case]
- Consumers' actions as "Draconian" and "drastic"
- The action of erasing cookies as "unlikely to make [consumers] safer" and "a trend" that needs to be reversed
The head of Safecount is the managing director of a San Francisco public relations firm, who hopes to include advertisers, consumer advocacy groups, agencies, market researchers, publishers, advertising technologists and policy analysts.
Comments