HOMEPersonalization and stickiness. Great attributes for any web site. People get what they want and your site builds brand equity and sales. Perfect.
In these continuing pursuits, MineKey offers a “better” web experience by logging online behavior and using this insight as a determinant of what a particular web site will serve a visitor on various pages of the site. Unlike many other behavioral tracking tools, MineKey combines a particular site visitor’s past behavior, with those of other visitors to that particular site, and then serves whatever content that site offers that MineKey thinks you most want to consume.
You can read all about it, including some interesting comments here.
OK so far, and pretty cool, although I would argue that an astute webmaster will know which content is most compelling, and how best to tell their own story, versus relying on the algorithm to do it. But that’s beside the point.
What concerns me is the privacy policy MindKey offers, which says, in part: “Minekey anonymously tracks the individual user’s browsing history and does not capture personally identifiable information without your user’s consent.”
Although it’s not being discussed much, this is triggering a loud buzzer in the privacy alert center (PAC) in my brain. Obviously, they are tracking this information, but only sharing it occasionally. “With consent.”
OK, show of hands. Who among us would willingly allow a behavioral tracking tool to also log our personal information and share it? Anyone?…….anyone?……Bueller?
Why would it ever be in our best interests to have our personal information logged by a behavioral tracking tool and associated with our online activities?
As we continue to try to define best practices and make the web a safer place to spend time, anything that potentially documents personal information should be first under the microscope.
While MineKey looks like an excellent tool to help understand how our sites are working and better matching content to guest interests, there is no consumer benefit to having personal information even occasionally logged, so this should simply never be under consideration.
KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John & Partners.
Tags: brand equity, browsing history, MineKey, personalization, privacy policy, stickiness, TechCrunch