WHAT THEY FORGOT TO MENTION AT CANNES

While the advertising industry remains distracted by ‘AI’, ‘the future of holding companies’, and ‘what happened at Cannes,’ we continue to ignore the one truly consequential issue that we face. We have spent almost twenty years normalizing an activity that should not be normal - in fact, it should not even be legal.

It is a terribly destructive activity that has had massive negative effects on individuals, on society, and on democratic institutions. The issue is tracking — the practice of spying on us across the web, relentlessly collecting private and personal information about us and sharing or selling that information to anyone who wants it.

With the mushrooming of artificial intelligence into every aspect of our lives, the pressure to end tracking should be intense. Instead it is invisible.

The advertising industry was successful and greatly profitable for decades without tracking. But online media - specifically the powerful online platforms - have convinced legislators and regulators that tracking is essential to their business models. This is preposterous coming from some of the most profitable companies the world has ever known.

We can no longer pretend that we don’t know about the damage that tracking has engendered...

Personal Liberty

Everywhere we go on the web we are being followed. Everything we do on the web is being catalogued. By tracking us, marketers know who we talk to, what we say, where we go, and what we do. They know who our friends are and what our interests are, they can infer what our bank balances look like, what our sexual preferences are, what our political leanings are, and where we are at any moment. The consequences of all this surveillance have become shocking, disturbing, and dangerous.

A report to the British Parliament asserted that by the time a child in Europe is 13 years old the adtech industry has 72 million data points on that child. And Europe has far more stringent tracking regulations than the U.S.

Advertisers used to use advertising media to impart information. Today they use it equally to collect information. Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy says, “Online advertising is tracking-aimed junk mail that only looks like advertising.” While only one online ad in a thousand may be clicked on, virtually every one of those ads is capable of enabling the collection of data about us.

Political Polarization

You don’t need a PhD in political science to recognize the dangerous polarization in American society. How did it get this way?

A study by a group of Facebook executives in 2018 reported that almost ⅔ (64%) of people who joined extremist groups on Facebook were directed there by recommendations from Facebook’s algorithm. And where do these algorithms harvest their data? From tracking us.

Social Fracturing

The common beliefs, understandings, and ethical values that define a society are evaporating. All societies have some degree of social friction. But successful societies have foundational narratives and customs that are woven into the fabric and provide stability despite the friction.

Scott Galloway says,”America has lost…shared experiences…Without shared stories, we don’t laugh together, love/hate the same heroes/villains, or believe in the same facts when we argue. We lose our empathy, our ability to see each other as human…it’s easy to hate someone whose cultural references are completely foreign to your feed. I’m struck by how angry Americans are.”

One of the primary sources of social fracturing is the information we each get from major platforms. It is largely influenced by the algorithms they use to target us. Once again, these are the product of the data they collect from tracking.

Democracy at Risk

According to the Brennan Center for Democracy, "Americans leave a trail of personal data with almost every action we take — every website visit, credit card payment, browser search, and online message generates data. Third parties like cell phone companies, internet service providers, social media platforms, and app developers collect and hold this information, often without our knowledge... This data also finds its way into exhaustive dossiers, compiled by data brokers, that reveal the most intimate details of our lives: our movements, habits, associations, health conditions, and ideologies.”

The worst governments in recent history were the ones that had state organs spying on the population: the Stasi, the KGB, the Gestapo. Until recently, the government in the US has been expressly prohibited from spying on its citizens. But the current love affair between the Trump administration and tech industry billionaires have made these prohibitions essentially moot. If you think the heads of these companies will resist coercion from Washington to provide data to the federal government you’re delusional.

According to the New York Times, "In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power."

From the Brennan Center, once again, “The lack of comprehensive data protection in the United States ...have fostered...a shadow digital economy of platforms and third-party data brokers that collect and commodify users’ data. This underregulated data broker ecosystem, built to target consumers with ads, also engenders ever-increasing risks of... dragnet surveillance by government agencies that can acquire vast amounts of personal information without legal process.”

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden had this to say, “Every single American’s safety is at risk until Congress cracks down on this sleazy industry.”

National Security

The dangers to democracy are not just limited to the role tracking has played in dividing citizens. It is also seen by many in the U.S. Congress as a threat to national security.

In a letter to adtech companies and others in April of 2021, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators wrote, “This information would be a goldmine for foreign intelligence services that could exploit it to inform and supercharge hacking, blackmail, and influence campaigns.”

They went on to say, “Few Americans realize that (data vampires) are siphoning off and storing…data to compile exhaustive dossiers about them…we must understand the serious national security risks posed by the unrestricted sale of Americans’ data to foreign companies and governments.”

Time For An Answer

Tracking is anathema to democracy. I don’t care where you are on the political spectrum, there is no sustainable model of democratic governance in which the citizens are being spied on every minute of the day.

The hidden-hand funding the collection, cataloging, and selling of personal private information about us is the advertising industry. The industry has fought every serious attempt to regulate the scourge of surveillance.

The irresponsibility of marketers, agencies, and trade groups is wreaking havoc with the integrity of democratic institutions. It's time to stop pretending we don't know the effects of what we're doing.

Bob is the author of Adscam, The Three Word Brief, and five other #1 selling books about advertising.