A recent Lokker report states that an increasingly complex privacy landscape presents several challenges.
Digital privacy efforts fail to protect consumers and marketers fully, especially as tracking becomes more sophisticated. While cookies have been a key part of the conversation in recent months, other tracking tools such as pixels can’t be overlooked by marketers feeling pressured to make their websites more secure, per a recent report from privacy software company Lokker.
A string of new state laws and the renewed possibility of a TikTok sell-off mandate further complicate the privacy landscape. The complexity and urgency surrounding privacy have increased violations, lawsuits, and fines, highlighting how important it is for marketers to stay up to date on regulatory developments.
“Marketers must adapt to the rapidly evolving data landscape,” said Ian Cohen, CEO of Lokker. Key steps include prioritizing transparency, limiting the amount of data collected, blocking unknown third parties, and creating a process between legal and engineering to understand and follow the rapidly changing regulatory landscape.”
The report “Website Privacy and Compliance Challenges” evaluated the privacy risks of 3,419 websites across four sectors: healthcare, tech, financial services, and retail. It also included all sites listed in the S&P 500.
Got a pixel on you
The report found the widespread use of tracking pixels, which serve a similar purpose to the third-party cookies currently being phased out by Google for privacy reasons. The small, often invisible pixel collects information on the user and is activated when the consumer opens an email or loads a web page.
Nearly half of all websites (47%) have a Meta pixel, while 12% have a TikTok pixel. However, this is far below the rate of cookie usage, which deploys on 98.5% of web pages when loaded. Despite this high usage rate, only 67% of websites utilize consent banners. However, 98% of these websites load the cookies before the consent banner, per Cohen. Additionally, 2% of websites use trackers from China, Russia, or Iran.
Cohen cites multiple reasons why consent manager tools are missing many trackers and cookies. However, the main one is how dynamic the third-party trackers and ad tech ecosystems are.
“A web page might have 100 third parties load on day one, 140 on day two, and 80 on day three. Without transparency into these changes, it’s impossible to address the underlying issue,” said Cohen.
While the TikTok pixel’s usage rate is relatively low, it bears consideration due to the platform’s criticism in recent months. A new sell-off bill through Congress has been gaining traction, with the app’s foreign connections a hot topic of debate. Among the websites reviewed by Lokker, 24.7% with the TikTok pixel were retail sites, followed by 8.7% of tech sites. To put that into perspective, 58% of retail and 42% of tech sites had Meta pixels.
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Sensitive data
The report found that 10% of websites share sensitive information with a third party, while 0.4% share extremely personal information. While consent tools are becoming more popular, they often fall short of being fully effective. Consent banners were most popular among S&P 500 websites at 88%, followed by retail and tech at 67% each. However, 100% of S&P 500 websites deployed cookies on page loading.
With the shortcomings of available software, the report recommends manual oversight to stay in compliance. This will become increasingly important as states continue to pass privacy laws, making compliance even more difficult.
“Companies must navigate a maze of regulations and enforcement actions rather than following a single federal standard. It is unlikely that this will change, as the states have already established their own definitions of what is permissible,” said Cohen.