Release 0.9: More on Cookie Crumbles Video Contest

Well, the contest is now in swing, and you can read all about it here and here.

Folks! We need videos! Please go to http://youtube.com/group/cookiecrumble. People don't understand how cookies, let alone behavioral targeting, works. So disclosure statements mean nothing to them. This contest is an attempt to change that... and to foster discussion of it outside marketing and public-interest circles. Let's get the actual participants involved and educated!

However, I do see one other mechanism for getting people informed. I was thinking about it last week when I moderated a panel for Google's Zeitgeist, with Chris Alden of SixApart, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn and Michael Birch of Bebo. For most people, the notion of being tracked is still something abstract and unfamiliar. They may know about cookies, but they don't understand how they really work, and they certainly don't have any sense of controlling the data they generate.

But that's now changing, as users start actively contributing their own data *and* controlling who sees it. They are getting that experience vis a vis their friends, in social networks and increasingly in various "sharing" services, where you share bookmarks, recommendations or even just visibility of what you are looking at online. Examples include Me.dium and Mogad, which let users share and track their friends' online activities (what sites they visit, which ones they like, etc.) -- with specific permission, of course.

That's what's key. People who would have thought the notion of controlling their interactions with marketers was unduly complex or weird, are learning to do just that with their friends. Over time, that habit will make them more comfortable doing the same with marketers. To some extent, the purpose of this "cookie contest" is to give users the understanding and knowledge to start doing so.

The challenge to marketers, of course, is to be as transparent and visible as everyone's *non*-commercial friends on the social networks, and to understand that friendship and transparency are two-way.

Comments

[RealSoft]

Some folks are paranoid, others are careless. You need to differentiate the two in these debates. Not everyone cares about a cookie, of if they are marketted to by a confused algorithm.

Recently the head of the university was found to have a facebook page with racy stuff and racist comments. She said she was not aware it was public.

This is becoming common. Folks do things feeling adventurous, and can always back off citing the new technology. The bottom line is that you can deny or ignore anything on the internet. Unless you are an activist from China - when the companies will automatically submit the stuff to the govt. to imprison you.

[splashy]

I just get rid of every cookie often, unless it's one that I want to make it easy to sign in.

FireFox's cookie handler works very well.

[robinhood1]

I agree. I also use AdBlock Plus to block most ads. It was written up on the New York Times web site, where I learned about it. Why a newspaper web site would publicize this kind of program is beyond me.

[ahsregusted]

A decade and more ago, when I was beginning to visit the 'net daily, cookies were an issue often brought up, and many (including me) would opt out of the cookie jar.

Gradually, the resistance to them eroded, and nowadays it's just a "given" that we're being tracked. Many legitimate websites will not give up their pearls without a cookie enabling feast.

The conclusion? We are sheep, and I'm feeling sheepish.

[realitytrumpsbull]

About a year or so ago, I read a story talking
about a counter-trend, people getting back off
the internet, for fear of a lot of the privacy
issues...