If you work in web marketing there are some people who hate you. They hate you with a passion that's bordering on the fanatical, especially if you're involved in web metrics.
The reason they hate you is that you count unique visitors.
They also hate you for presenting ads online.
These people will do everything they can to avoid being counted. Some of them will also try to make your count of other people inaccurate.
These people are your techies. They are your web site administrators, your UNIX gurus, your online programmers, your IT support staff.
If you sell or market IT products, or analyze that audience, you've got a fight on your hands.
This article is about how these people are fighting you.
Background
Last month, I wrote an article that discussed different ways of identifying unique visitors. It attracted a great deal of feedback, including the creation of a forum in slashdot.org, which is the ultimate tech/geek site. Much of that feedback came from people explaining how they avoid being tracked. It revealed a mind-set, and a community, actively involved in the prevention of web tracking.
Throughout this month's column, I'll share some choice quotes, with names omitted to protect privacy:
"I'm tired of all these marketing bullshit artists trying to track my every page view and metric on what I do at their site."
"I'm no privacy nut, but I wouldn't stand for being tracked as I walk around all day; I've no great desire to accept it as I walk around the 'net either."
The mindset
Before I describe the techniques people are using to evade detection, I want to look at the mindset of these people.
First, it's important to understand these are not average web users. You need to know your online technology to apply evasion techniques. These people are in the know about the web and how it works. I've no way of knowing how many there are, but anyone working on open source software, which drives the internet, will have the skills required. There are over a million developers working on open source in the USA alone (source: Evans Data, Feb 2004).
There are two drivers to their opposition to web tracking -- poor advertising practice, and a misunderstanding of tracking.
Advertising is evil
Online advertising is often horrible. Pop-ups are intrusive -- how is positioning an ad so that I can't read my page supposed to endear your product to me? You obviously don't care about me: you just want my money. Banner advertising is, in my view, never worthwhile -- ever. Trying to distract me with banners that have no relevance to what I'm doing only teaches me how to develop tunnel vision.
"If you want us to view your ads, make your content worth our time, and more importantly, make your ads worth viewing, unobtrusive, and not an annoying flashing noisy mess."
I've never encountered anyone objecting to Google Ads. The point about delivering search-triggered ads is relevancy. If you're presenting relevant information at a relevant time without getting in the way, no one objects.
Poor online advertising has led to the mind-set that all online advertising is bad.
"I've made it a rule to *never, ever * click on *any* ad. Period. If I really, really, want the xyz gizmo, from abc Corp., I will visit the MFGR's site directly, or a known retailer of their products."
Web metrics = spying
"Maybe if we can generate enough noise these morons will stop trying to come up with more useless ways to invade our privacy and track our every online move."
Some companies have lied about their privacy practices and sold data they promised they wouldn't. Other companies invisibly track user movements between sites so that they can profile the user and sell the data. Making money out of lying is called fraud and it's obviously immoral. Profiling people without their knowledge or permission is also immoral. Any time you secretly do something to someone that they would object to if they knew about it, you're committing an immoral act. People value their anonymity online. They don't want it taken away without their knowledge and consent.
Counting unique visitors on your site does not involve identifying someone. However, anti-metrics people don't make that distinction.
"The only thing gained by uniquely identifying users outside of financial transactions is the opportunity to violate their privacy."
Note that our friend here treated "unique users" and "uniquely identifying users" as the same thing. Identifying unique users simply means being able to tell that two visits came from different people. Nothing about this implies knowing who those people were. However, understanding the difference requires some knowledge of metrics definitions.
Here, unscrupulous web metrics practices have combined with a lack of understanding: the result is a condemnation of the entire industry.
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