Study: Opt-in regulation decreases ad effectiveness by 65%
The University of Toronto's Avi Goldfarb and MIT's Catherine E.
Tucker surveyed 3.3 million people who had been exposed to a
total of 9,596 online ad campaigns between 2001 and 2008.
Researchers asked web surfers exposed to a specific campaign
whether they intended to purchase the products they saw. They
then asked a control group who hadn't seen the ads if they would
purchase the same products.  Comparing results between EU and
non-EU countries, the study concluded that Europe's laws reduced
effectiveness (according to purchase intent) by over 65%.  Why?
Because the privacy rules implemented by the EU rendered
targeting efforts much less effective. European Union data
protection laws ban marketers from tracking users through "bugs"
or "cookies" without notifying people and getting their consent.
The study also checked its assumptions by tracking loopholes to
the EU regulations. According to the study:   "We found that
when Europeans browsed websi