This isn’t the place to discuss gun control but #BoycottNRA illustrates much about corporate involvement in social issues in general and Amazon and Google in particular. Already under attack as monopolists, their response to demands they sever ties with the National Rifle Association may have a major impact on public attitudes. Facebook has largely been on the sidelines of this one.
Personalization vendor SmarterHQ has released an identity resolution framework to track customers across time, channels and devices. They’ve always gathered data from multiple sources so presumably what’s new is improved matching methods. Maybe more interesting is that they consider identity resolution a feature worth promoting. File it under the same heading as Tapad repositioning itself as a CDP.
Do consumers want marketers to have their data? One hint is that 41% in a RSA survey said they’ve given false information when filling out online forms. The most common reason was to avoid unsolicited communications. They also take direct action: 54% said they avoid buying from companies known to mishandle consumer data and 50% are more likely to shop with companies that take data protection seriously. Just 11% said they never give any thought to companies’ reputations for data protection.
Google’s search market share has dropped below 90% for the first time since 2015 according to web traffic analysis platform Statcounter. This does not necessarily signal a migration of users to AI search, since Statcounter compares search traffic only among the main search engines. The likes of Bing and Yandex are still way behind Google.