The Cookie Crumbles
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 by Slaal
In an attempt to win 5000 bucks we created a short film about cookies for a contest a week and a half ago. There were almost no submissions at the time we entered and the quality of the existing videos was quite poor, so we thought our chances to be good. The film is a bit technical, and I think it’s also rather dull, but it got us to the final round (mostly based on the competition). The five finalists were all invited to D.C. to screen our films for industry experts who would then crown a winner.
I didn’t meet dubya in my time at the capital (though I think he may have flown over me), though I did have an opportunity (albeit slight) to influence public policy while I was there. The screening was part of a town hall on behavioral advertising on the web held the the Federal Trade Commision. They are starting to look into what kind of (if any) regulations need to be placed on web advertisers in regards to consumers’ privacy rights. The town hall was remarkably interesting and terrifically boring at the same time. The big names in the industry were there (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft) and basically opposed any sort of government control. They also promoted the idea that if consumers didn’t trust them, business would dry up and they would disappear overnight so that regulation by the government was unnecessary. Though it made me wonder, does anyone really trust Microsoft? Watchdog groups were also present, but they didn’t really seem to have any plan of their own to promote, or perhaps just had too many… Basically the conversation that was held can be summed up like this:
FTC: So what do y’all think we should do?
Industry: Nothing, the market will regulate itself.
Watchdog: We don’t trust industry.
Industry: <aims derisive snicker at watchdog then turns to FTC> But the people trust us, and that’s what counts.
Statistician: Our surveys show that people don’t care about what you want them to care about they just want free services.
FTC: Thanks to you all for coming and to Microsoft for the free bagels, they were delicious, we’ll have to do this again sometime…
As aloof as the industry folks were (while trying to seem otherwise), I am pretty sure they are more or less right. In the long period of time it would take to create any kind of meaningful regulation, the services and monetary flow of the web will have changed enough that the regulations will either get in the way of something useful, or just be totally moot. I think that when people get cajoled enough by the watchdog groups into caring about their privacy, a new startup will emerge to create standardized privacy statements that work similar to the way creative commons licenses work now. Who knows how long that will take though…
In the end, they chose an equally dull and technical video for the big money and I lost interest in government processes. I think the two were related…