Americans don't like online tracking

Jake Widman
Thursday, 01 October 2009 05:39

Business IT - Technology

A study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley has found that American consumers don't want to see online content tailored to their browsing habits. They also don't feel in control of their personal information, though they tend to trust online businesses to handle it properly.

The study, entitled "Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and Three Activities that Enable It" (PDF), represents work by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and Anneberg Public Policy Center and from the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.

The survey was conducted by phone with a representative sample of 1,000 adult Internet users living in the continental U.S. The questioners started with questions about whether the participants wanted websites to tailor content to their interests and, if they answered yes, whether it was okay if the tailoring was based on (a) activities on the visited site, (b) activities on other sites, or (c) activities conducted offline.

More than twice as many respondents didn't want to see tailored ads as did want to see them (66% to 32%). People were more accepting of tailored news (57% to 40%), while tailored discounts almost broke even (49% no, 47% yes).

Those margins got even wider when people were asked about specific bases for the tailoring -- that is, some of the people who originally said tailoring was okay changed their mind when asked about what the tailoring might be based on.

When asked about tailored content based on activities on the visited website, for example, the percentage of people saying no increased by an average of eleven points.

Tailoring content based on activities on other sites made the rejections rise an average of 24 points, while basing the tailored content on offline activities increased the negative responses by an average of nearly 26 points.

For more on consumers' attitudes about online tracking, see Page 2.