Slashdot Mirror
Fighting Marketing Drones Over 3rd Party Web Tracking?
Web Sawy asks: "I work for a large-ish company (4000+). We have a number of disparate divisions and, believe it or not, varying knowledge on How Technology Works. It was brought to my attention that one part of the corporate website has been using 'a third party tool' to 'compare the performance of individual ads'. In other words, some external party is tracking user surfing habits. How does one go about educating co-workers on the evils of these third party services, which are currently 'helping' the Marketing department? What technologies are people using to do this type of reporting to help the Marketing department generate their numbers? In the world that I live, I can't even see those third-party ads (or hidden images!). I certainly can build my own user tracking system using existing technologies but before I fight that major uphill battle, I wonder if Slashdot readers would share their insights."
1. Third party tracking
2. ?????
3. EVIL unleashed on the world!
Did someone with a third party tool steal your girlfriend or something? Are they reselling user information? Is it too closely cuppled with your user database? Purchase history?
No? Then there is no big deal. Go with whatever technology works for you.
.sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
Some 3rd party tools can be very helpful and are cheaper then building your own. The problem though is some of these are really adware and spyware. You should ask around and see if your boos and coworkers know what spyware is. Explain that your company is using spyware (if it is) and you should also explain the benefits by using a different solution.
You are not marketing. You did not go to school to be in marketing. Therefore, according to Marketing, you don't know shite from shinola. It doesn't matter if you have a doctorate, have coded C for 20 years, scored 300 on a standard IQ test, taught yourself Perl, MySQL, PHP, HTML, ASP, Java, and C, or cut your teeth on a PDP-10, you are an imbecile because you can't (or won't) sell.
Thank goodness we technical people don't feel that way about marketroids.
My suggestion is to build the applet, install it, let it run for a few weeks, and demonstrate the results at the next meeting.
That's a good strategy. I'd add two more things. First, provide them with something they want that the vendor doesn't provide. Often, what people really hate about outside vendors is that they don't have much control, so if you use a short-cycle iterative process (e.g., Extreme Programming), they may be instantly happier because they feel like they are in the driver's seat.
Second, learn how to express your objections and offerings in marketing terms. E.g., don't talk to them about right to privacy; talk to them about bad PR.
The key word is "corporation." That says it all. If you're in a corporation large enough so the top person doesn't personally know all the employees, then it's a company that doesn't care about anything but making money. All marketing will care about is getting data and putting propaganda out there so the company makes money. Making money also means getting a job done quickly, so fewer man hours are involved. They don't want to hear a better way. They don't want a simpler way. They've got a method in place so, by definition (and because of their egos), their method is "right." If you don't like what they're doing, go out and start your own business, build it up, and lead by example. And see if, in 10-20 years, you don't find yourself more concerned about the budget and profits than right and wrong. It's the way all big corporations think.