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And welcome to the first installment of the Parallel Thinking Europe blog, thanks for taking the time to check it out. The best place to start would, I think, be with a little bio. I'm Dave McCarthy, a search engine optimizer with Parallel Thinking Europe and I'm into all things techy (which helps an awful lot in this job) as well as all things sporty, rugby union being my distraction of choice when it's on. I also play classical and bass guitar and get to gigs and festivals whenever I get the chance. A couple of my colleagues will also be adding to this blog page but I'll leave them to introduce themselves. This blog will obviously be focused on eCommerce, search engine optimization and online payments and security but I'm hoping to also integrate the other interesting developments in business and technology which are pertinent to my job and relevant to the businesses which we deal with.
Starting on such a topic, one of the most debated aspects of the internet is once again in the front of my thoughts: privacy. Yahoo and Microsoft are making major concessions on their privacy policies, both agreeing to hold search data for only 18 months and to make use cookies with a life-span of just 2 years instead of 30 years. In my field of search engine optimization, information is absolute key to a successful operation. We apply the principles of SEO which we know work, but without comprehensive data on web traffic, we can't do our job effectively. So, am I worried about the trend towards greater protection of online privacy? Not really is the answer I'd give. In fact, I'm in support of it in many ways. the reason I'm not worried is simply that the data we need is still available, we don't need to be able to identify people in order to target an audience, we just need to know the general patterns of traffic that visits a client's site. The problem arises because, although the data we use can not identify individuals, the raw data of the search companies often can all too easily. This is really why I'm in favour of online privacy protection. With all of the online scams and security issues both with the internet in general and particularly in eCommerce, increasing our business relies as much on lessening people's fear of using online services as it does on reaching those who already use them. So, if people feel more protected when surfing online then it can only mean good things for our clients and good things for us. I sincerely hope you've enjoyed the blog and will come back soon for the next update or even sign up to the RSS feed for our page. ciao |
