Gary Kovacs on Tracking the Trackers

Gary Kovacs’ TED talk ‘Tracking the Trackers’ has over 1.9 million views, a formidable number that reveals its popularity with TED viewers. We’d venture to guess that the talk’s short length helps increase viewership, as it clocks in at a little less than 7 minutes. But it’s Kovacs’ colloquial style and compelling storytelling that hold the audience’s attention throughout. ‘Tracking the Trackers’ is an interesting, impassioned presentation from which we can glean a few lessons in effective presenting.

Good Visualization of Data

The subject Kovacs tackles in his talk is behavioral tracking–– basically, big businesses tracking our every move on the Internet. He introduces an add-on called collusion that can be used on any web browser. The add-on depicts a mess of connected red, blue and grey dots. He does a good job of explaining what each of the dots represent, and he does well to keep the visualization of data as simple as possible. The number of dots represent the number of sites following your every move online. It’s a powerful visual rendering. “Not even two bites into breakfast, and there are already nearly 25 sites that are tracking me,” Kovacs says. “I have navigated to a total of four.”

Compelling, Personal Storytelling

Much of the power in Kovacs’ talk comes from him discussing the implications of all this tracking for his nine-year-old daughter. He shows us what his collusion footprint looks like at the end of the day, and rightfully we’re a little shocked. But the true shock comes when we see the collusion footprint of Kovacs’ daughter after she spends two hours online going to primarily children’s sites. Red, blue and grey dots densely populate the screen behind Kovacs. This is where his being ‘freaked out’ by all this tracking turns into him being ‘enraged.’ Including his personal story, how this behavioral tracking affects his own daughter, his loved one, is extremely effective–– it shows the implications of tracking on a more vulnerable and personal level, and it encourages the audience to think about how it can affect their loved ones, too.

Convincing Call to Action

The end of Kovacs’ talk is an enthusiastic, impassioned call to action. Some of the phrases he uses are clichéd, politic fodder: “We can’t sit idly by,” “All of our voices need to be heard,” etc. Regardless, we can’t help but take Kovacs’ call to action seriously, as he is clearly impassioned by the notion that “our voices matter, our actions matter.” Platitudes and timeworn phrases aside, Kovacs ends strongly, leaving a lasting impression on his audience: “We are being watched. It’s time to watch the watchers.”

Watch the entire talk here.





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