3:00 AM
Diana D'Cruz
Certainly it is not easy every day to be Microsoft. Now that the Redmond company has purchased a pipe in recent years and has been replaced by big bad Apple, Facebook , Google or even for some, it is the other side come the beatings, Besides its historical customers.
Background: Microsoft announced that there are several months that the next version of its web browser, Internet Explorer 10, is with the default function Do Not Track , which ensures that users can not be tracked by advertisers when surfing the internet, thus preserving a degree of anonymity and avoiding being bombarded with advertisements targeted and contextual.
After a short period of uncertainty, we now know that the feature Do Not Track is enabled by default but can be disabled by those who wish. However, even this is not imposed, we wonder who will tamper with the settings in the browser to say "go ahead send targeted advertising, I love being traced and receive contextual offers when I Youporn drags".
Hence the anger advertisers. In a lengthy open letter published on October 1 at the site of the ANA, the National Association of Advertisers (USA), thirty marketing managers of larger firms, including names such as Ford, Verizon, Coca Cola, Unilever, General Electric, American Express, or, expressed more strongly and unequivocally its opposition to Microsoft's decision to implement Do Not Track, and ordered him to return it.
The arguments are many, but some show a fairly obvious bad faith, as one who claims to defend the consumer stating that the choice of the latter will be reduced and it is not appropriate to impose how it intends to surf the web.
I must say that the stakes are high: the marks in question are investing an annual budget of $ 2.8 billion in advertising via Microsoft.
Remains whether Steve Ballmer and his board directly arraigned in this letter, will yield to pressure from advertisers, or if they remain sided with the users.
