The EU announced that starting May 25th explicit consent must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via cookie.
Obviously the biggest impact is to online advertisers (who I care very little for) who use euphemist terms like “interest based advertising” to hide the fact they would happily crawl through your trash if it meant you would look at the crap they are hawking. Online advertisers only get dangerous when they band together and begin to compare notes, then talk to someone like Mark Zuckerberg (who will happily share your personal information for a few dollars) and begin to develop a profile on you.
In the UK the advertisers there have made this swell website that explains how harmless they are.
“You receive online display advertising that is relevant to you and your interests. For example, if you’re interested in gardening and visit gardening websites, you may – in the same or a later online session – receive advertising for special offers on lawnmowers.
More targeted advertising is beneficial as you’ll receive more relevant adverts as well as access to free quality content, services and applications.”
How that is a benefit I can’t understand. If I want a lawnmower, I will look for one. I have never clicked on a single ad. However, I think there will be a paradigm shift soon though. The online advertisers are usingthe same “blast an ad until they give in” garbage that television is based on.
I have to laugh when I hear TV execs complain about the internet and how messy it is. TV isn’t messy because it is a one way medium. “Here, sit and watch the shit I want to show you!” Tracking TV is easy because they just put a box on your TV that measures what channel your on and for how long. They assume people are watching because they assume people have no choice, no control.
With the internet users control their own experience. Take the CBC for example, the content is provided, but the order in which you consume it is up to you. Maybe you don’t read the sports section, maybe you watch a video, perhaps you listen to the live radio stream from St. John’s because you want to. You have control.
The EU is attempting to provide the users with even more control. Control over what gets recorded. But as my friend and colleague Chris Berry pointed out, if you are viewing content for free, you are the product. The exchange of goods is that for reading my post for free, you allow me to track you because that is how I get paid. That is how I keep creating content. He predicts that there might be “no cookie, no content” websites showing up soon.