How IP Masking is Helping Fight Ad Trackers?

For a long time, IP addresses have been one of the key ways advertisers quantify users into households or other targeted groups and track their online behavior. Most websites that deal in e-commerce in some capacity already have sophisticated mechanisms in place for following up on visitors, even the ones who did not end up making a purchase. 

The primary method of this campaign is tracking a single user ID linked to several social media platforms. The use of IP addresses is less pervasive in this surveillance activity. However, it is not that limited.

What is an IP Address? 

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique identification number assigned to every computer, phone, or other smart devices that are connected to the world wide web. 

Your computer or phone on which you are reading this article also has its unique IP address that can be detected whenever you visit a website or use an app.

How Do Advertisers Use an IP Address? 

In essence, IP advertising and IP targeting are extremely straightforward. Every internet-connected device is given a distinct Internet Protocol (IP) address. You can use this to target audiences based on their IP address or location.

Advertisers can display ads to the precise address they desire thanks to this type of hyper-targeting, which eliminates ineffective ad targeting. 

In actuality, this advertising offers users a true one-to-one marketing capability and targeting powers 50x or more than those of conventional media. IP marketing is more targeted than the segment of the population or behavioral audience creation, providing a larger benefit.

What Does IP Address Marketing Mean for Privacy?

In contrast to cookies or hardware IDs, owners of IP addresses are not granted the same security settings. The connection between the identifier as well as the data obtained can be severed by users simply clearing their cookies or resetting their device settings. 

Consumers have total power over how marketers will “forget” them using cookies and equipment Identifiers, but they have really no choice regarding IP addresses.

IP addresses are assigned by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), hence the user does not influence this. Because of their vulnerability to privacy concerns, cookies and geolocation have drawn the majority of interest. 

However, data businesses will depend heavily on IP addresses to execute market monitoring.

Enter Apple and Microsoft

Apple’s latest iCloud Plus service will allow users to double encrypt their activity using a technology known as Private Relay. The Safari browser will proactively disguise IP numbers using Intelligent Tracking Prevention.

Because Apple’s actions are limited to its own universe, their overall effects are probably going to be modest at first. 

Experts of technology and operations at large agencies said that despite everything, it “certainly implies that IP-enabled geotargeting may not remain viable again for the future.”

Regulators have indeed looked closely at IP addresses for rule-breaking intrusions upon individual rights by large tech companies.

The Microsoft Edge internet browser now includes a new, free facility called Microsoft Edge Secure Network that stops digital companies from discovering a person’s real IP address. 

By obscuring a user’s digital credentials and prohibiting illegal IP address information gathering, the new feature from Microsoft provides comparable privacy guarantees to iCloud’s Private Relay with their patent browser Safari.

Each service’s fundamental tenet is now that a user’s IP address will be changed to a momentary one made up by Microsoft. 

By masking the IP address, data miners, marketers, and even the local ISP will be unable to gather information about a user’s surfing habits and IP address information for the purpose of executing marketing campaigns.

What’s In Store for IP-Based Marketing?

There are tools already in existence that curb IP tracking with varying efficiency. The fastest VPNs might muck up trying to target users because it might look like a person is browsing the web from Seattle when they are actually on campus in Houston. Users are given IP addresses by Internet companies; these can be either static or dynamic.

Similar to a mobile number or home address, companies frequently utilize static IP addresses that remain constant throughout a set duration. Conversely, the majority of users possess dynamic IP addresses which change and renew over periods, typically after a router restart.

Because of this, advertising methods that aim for an IP address or cluster of IP addresses belonging to a particular population group are frequently successful for B2B marketers, although IP-based ads for individuals might be either unsuccessful or unsuccessful.

Considering they offer a simple integrated option for consumers to conceal an IP, IP encrypting services provided by tech giants pose the most immediate danger to IP address tracing. 

Every one of these choices, however, has restrictions or a price that prevents widespread use. However, Microsoft’s decision to offer a largely free service may ultimately lead to competitor businesses making comparable offers.

Conclusion

After their fight over cookies and hardware IDs, watchdogs should focus on IP addresses, but even that battle is indeed continuing on. The corporations in charge of the gadgets and internet browsers that we regularly use are inevitably where and how the fight against any identifiable piece of data starts and ends.

In comparison to technology that is on the road to obsolescence, like cookies and hardware IDs, consumers have much less choice over personal privacy whenever corporations record individual IP addresses. 

Additionally, the greatest brands in technology that run the source of access to the Internet have been indicating their intention to stop people from the use of IP addresses to classify them.

In the coming years, IP addresses will undoubtedly still be used as identifiers, but internet advertising organizations must consider how they will fit into increasingly privacy-focused user sentiment.

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