Blog homeTravolution have an interesting story today about how Affiliate Future (a UK based affiliate tracking company) have introduced a new tracking system that they say is better than tracking using cookies (VeraciTag)
All I can say is that I really hope AffiliateFuture haven’t done what is reported they have done.
The “problem” is that using cookies to track the same consumer over multiple visits has resulted in some consumers becoming concerned about privacy issues. Well yes they are right to be - but cookies by themselves are fairly safe creatures and should not be feared…. Most importantly with cookies - consumers are in control of their own data… which is how it should be (A consumer can, if they so wish, delete cookies from their computer). I am a believer in consumers having the final say on their own data and privacy.
What AffiliateFuture has reportedly done is alter how ETags work in web browsers. In essence an ETag is a mechanism for browsers to check whether a page has altered since the last visit….. there is a description of how to use an ETag for tracking without cookies on this page (which, depending upon how AffiliateFuture plan to do the tracking, may prove to be prior-art in any patent application)….
Why would using ETags be such a bad idea?
It is quite a neat idea from a tracking perspective….. however there could be some serious side effects down the road. For example people currently produce tools that help consumers delete cookies….. well if lots of tracking companies start to use ETags then it won’t be long before web browsers will enable you to strip ETags from your http requests.
This would be a very bad outcome as ETags are core to enabling high transaction websites operate under high load - as they greatly reduce the number of times a server has to generate a web page (rather than a browser taking it out of a local cache) or retrieve an unchanged image. Indeed, using ETags on your web content is rule #11 from Yahoo for high performance websites
On September 11th 2001 Jo Moore, a Labour aide (ruling political party in the UK) wrote the now infamous memo sent around UK government “It is now a very good day to get anything out we want to bury”. (see Telegraph). I wonder whether AffiliateFuture are using this week to announce their new tracking system while the main IT and web consumer press are focussed on the Phorm / adware discussion.
Thank you to Affiliates4U forum members for some of the info about how to track without cookies.
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