>If it was just ads, on the page itself and without any further trickery the ads would work just fine.
I really want this to be true but the elephant in the room is auditing. Without the ad network performing tracking, advertisers have no way to independently verify ad performance and corresponding payment to publishers for CPC ads. For CPA ads, the publisher has no way to independently verify the advertiser is paying out correctly for sales conversions.
You need a third party in the middle to arbitrate. AFAIK, the only way to do that at scale is with cookies from an ad network dropped in and tracked via a beacon.
I guess the only solution is for a new, non-commercial advertising network to spring up (sort of like an NGO) with a strong enough charter and ethical approach that end users (or browsers themselves?) trust limited tracking from ads served through that network. The problem is, who funds it? Not the advertisers or publishers as that would destroy the impartiality of the network.
Edit: and problem two is if such an ad network came in to existence and was successful, it would end up a de-facto monopoly for on-line ad distribution. Apart from the headwinds it would attract from Google, there are obvious issues around free-speech, mono-culture etc.
Edit 2: or maybe the "internet" agrees what an ethical ad network should look like and then any one is free to set one up but must submit to regular auditing by a new internet body to make sure they are sticking to the agreed "charter". That way the ad network could be operationally funded by publishers/advertisiers but still retain user's trust. A little like the CA market for SSL certs. If an ad network started misbehaving, browsers themselves could block/de-list them (like they do when they revoke root certs from rogue CAs)
They could audit the effectiveness by catching the clicks on a redirect. That way they can't track but will still know the number of visitors as a result of the campaign.
A 'sample audience' such as used in TV that would willingly be tracked could then be used to extrapolate impressions.
The sample audience might work for CPC campaigns on large sites but difficult to see how it would work reliably for the millions of smaller sites out there (or work at all for CPA campaigns where conversion % can vary wildly depending on the action being paid for and the geography of the end user market being targetted).
I'd personally have zero problem with a strongly audited third party tracking me during transition from a publisher site to arrival (or checkout in the case of CPA) on an advertiser's site.
What I do object to is that same tracking info being used across every publisher and advertiser on the ad network (and tracking info persisting for months).
If there was an ad network that enforced a strict set of simple, inert advertising formats and ensured tracking was ephemeral and unique between each publisher/advertiser pair (and not capable of being used to parallel construct my browsing across the whole network), I'd happily accept the compromise. Doubly so if I knew the browsers held a nuclear option of "de-listing" the network in the event of bad behaviour.
Well, for CPA the only thing that matters you already know, then it's up to you to decide who you want to run those ads and if they agree with you and find you trustworthy. That's a 'solved problem' in the sense that for a long time such situations were dealt with using outside auditors. It costs a bit but not so much that it would make CPA impossible, merely less convenient.
Interesting part I got from this discourse: there is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to what is acceptable and what is not. That's yet another problem to be solved.
I really want this to be true but the elephant in the room is auditing. Without the ad network performing tracking, advertisers have no way to independently verify ad performance and corresponding payment to publishers for CPC ads. For CPA ads, the publisher has no way to independently verify the advertiser is paying out correctly for sales conversions.
You need a third party in the middle to arbitrate. AFAIK, the only way to do that at scale is with cookies from an ad network dropped in and tracked via a beacon.
I guess the only solution is for a new, non-commercial advertising network to spring up (sort of like an NGO) with a strong enough charter and ethical approach that end users (or browsers themselves?) trust limited tracking from ads served through that network. The problem is, who funds it? Not the advertisers or publishers as that would destroy the impartiality of the network.
Edit: and problem two is if such an ad network came in to existence and was successful, it would end up a de-facto monopoly for on-line ad distribution. Apart from the headwinds it would attract from Google, there are obvious issues around free-speech, mono-culture etc.
Edit 2: or maybe the "internet" agrees what an ethical ad network should look like and then any one is free to set one up but must submit to regular auditing by a new internet body to make sure they are sticking to the agreed "charter". That way the ad network could be operationally funded by publishers/advertisiers but still retain user's trust. A little like the CA market for SSL certs. If an ad network started misbehaving, browsers themselves could block/de-list them (like they do when they revoke root certs from rogue CAs)