I have touched at least tangentially on the topic of online tracking before. If you missed it, click here for a recap. If you, like me, are fascinated by data mining and related issues of online privacy, information flow and control, there’s a current NY Times piece called “These Ads Think They Know You.” The authors, from The Privacy Project, very cleverly expose some current tricks of the trade in targeted advertising: By taking out such ads in the Times itself! And if all of that doesn’t horrify you, or at least hook your interest, then please: Don’t bother reading on. Everybody else? Follow me.
Sample ad text:
This ad thinks you’re trying to lose weight & still love bakeries.
(from your browsing history) (from your credit card history)
2nd frame of the ad:
You’re being watched. Are you okay with that?
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This was an experiment in how far digital advertisers go to collect and use information about every part of our lives – for profit. But it’s also the story of how our information is used, not just to target us, but to manipulate others for economic and political ends — invisibly, and in ways that are difficult to scrutinize or even question. And it’s a warning sign about the real-world risks that come from this sophisticated guessing game which is played out in billions of transactions each day…
Today’s data providers can receive information from almost every imaginable part of your life: Your activity on the internet, the places you visit, the stores you walk through, the things you buy, the things you like, who your friends are, the places your friends go, the things your friends do, and on and on.
Just by browsing the web, you’re sending valuable data to trackers and ad platforms. Websites can also provide marketers specific things they know about you, like your date of birth or email address.
Ad companies often identify you when you load a website using trackers and cookies — small files containing information about you. Then your data is shared with multiple advertisers who bid to fill the ad space. The winning bid gets to fill the ad slot.
Companies today are mining private lives the same way they exploit natural resources: By turning them into profitable goods. That makes every “smart” device and “personalized” service just another way to collect data for the surveillance economy.
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Full disclosure: This website – dewconsulting.net – does not buy, sell, share, trade in, or even much care about, information collected from your visit. And if you will only please just take the one simple step of using a private browsing session, no cookies can be collected in any event. As for your other visits to Facebook, Google, Amazon, or Ashley Madison? You should be so lucky!
I personally am willing to accept the tracking to have targeted ads. I go into using a computer especially the internet with eyes wide open. I expect no privacy and even things like private browsing and Tor are probably more of an illusion. Data is too valuable for governments to ignore it. I recommend reading about Snowden to anyone who hasn’t.