REDMOND, WA — Microsoft’s beta version of Internet Explorer 8, released only last week, already has the advertising and publishing communities in a minor tizzy. The new browser’s InPrivate features may threaten the $21.2 billion online-advertising industry’s ability to display ads and track surfers, thereby decreasing the industry’s ability to monetize virtual real estate.InPrivate, a new suite of tools built into IE 8, allows surfers to block pop-ups and prevent third-party ads from displaying on Web pages. InPrivate Blocking, which not only blocks the ads but also the setting and examination of cookies by advertising networks, is of particular concern to advertisers and publishers. InPrivate Blocking works automatically — but only when a user is surfing with InPrivate Browsing turned on — and Microsoft says the feature is designed to protect consumers’ privacy.
Advertising groups are worried the feature may harm their revenues.
“With IE’s market share, will so many people activate that so that it could affect the revenue side of the industry?” Internet Advertising Bureau Vice President for Public Policy Mike Zaneis asked during an interview with Ad Age. “Any content from anywhere that appears as third parties, whether advertising or stock tickers or news feeds, all appear as third parties, and in theory their content could be blocked.
“And if you’re blocking all third parties, you’re also going to block all analytic companies,” he added. “You’d be blocking the companies that do the auditing of ad delivery.”
Microsoft IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch conceded the software cannot distinguish between different types of content, saying it begins to block tracking and display after a user’s tenth encounter with the same third party in one browsing session. Every time a user exits IE 8 by closing the browsing window, he or she must reinitiate an InPrivate session in order to activate the InPrivate features. Many users won’t take that step, because IE 8 stores no information during InPrivate sessions — no history, no passwords, no usernames, nada.
In addition, users can create personal “allow” and “block” lists that allow content from and tracking by trusted sources. Users also can subscribe to lists of “acceptable” content created by others. According to Hachamovitch, the only things IE 8 will block are stealthy tactics to which consumers object and over which they ought to have control. In fact, that’s the ultimate goal of InPrivate: returning control to consumers, which is where it should have been all along, Hachamovitch indicated.
“In a world of well-informed consumers who expect choice, we all need to be thoughtful about how we conduct business,” he told Ad Age. “To me, this really starts the conversation. IE8 Beta 2 starts us thinking about the expectations people should have about what they share and how.”
Added a Microsoft spokeswoman, “From the Microsoft perspective, we’re right there with the rest of the crowd in that we think there is a lot of benefit in targeted ads. We just believe consumers have the right to know it’s happening and to opt in.”
Advertisers soon may have no choice about whether they track consumers anyway. The practice has come under serious scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission and Congress in recent months, and several congressmen are mulling legislation to curb stealth dossier-building.
