Its an axiom of good business to know one’s costumers. If a business knows what its customer’s want, they can deliver. In the old days, a store owner would put names with faces, and remember what was purchased. Today, websites track content researched and page surfing routes to do the same. Experts disagree where to draw the line between acceptable and not. Consequently, the FTC is holding a special two-day review of “behavioral advertising” that is utilized by huge companies such as Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines (Davies).
Federal regulators are interested in the issue as privacy groups advocate for more consumer rights. Federal Trade Commissioner Jon Lebowitz stated at a recent meeting, "Your online experience seems private, but you never know who's peering over your shoulder" (Davies). Behavioral advertising can include how websites remember what you searched for the previous time you visited the website through cookies, or scanning content such as email for keywords and thus displaying related ads. The giant search engines like Google, and Yahoo! defend they only hold information for 18 months, and consumers actually like it because they do not have to view absurd ads. Also, the advertising revenue enables great free services on the websites.
I personally am very torn about this practice. I use Gmail, which is run by Google. I get to use it for free with unlimited space. In return on the right hand side of my screen are advertisements that are supposed to target my spending behavior. So in a recent email my mom mentioned the word “flu”, and google displayed all the places in the area I could get a flu shot. On one hand, I hate the fact that Google tries figure out my consumption patterns. I also am not sure if Google will keep this information to themselves or if they will be willing to sell it to someone else. At the same time, I love gmail. I have my umass email account forwarded to their because of the great search feature, and the ease of the interactive userface. There is a saying in economics “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The idea applies well here because in order for me to enjoy the great service, I have to give up something, in this case privacy. I suppose the advertisements are not a big deal since I trained myself not to look there. Yet, I wonder how else they can target me. In the terms of services, they say “No human will read the content of your email in order to target such advertisements or other information without your consent, and no email content or other personally identifiable information will be provided to advertisers as part of the Service.” This is really good, but they go on to say “We may combine personal information collected from you with information from other Google services or third parties to provide a better user experience, including customizing content for you.” I am apprehensive of who these third parties are, and what content relating to me they are talking about. This sparked my curiosity about just how good this software is.
I tested the software by sending an email to myself with only one sentence “I want to invest in donkeys.” Eight ads were displayed when I opened the email. Although they all related to investing, none were about investing in live stock. The software has its limitations, but its only time before it will be able to tell where to buy a donkey in Amherst, Ma. I will continue to use Gmail, and am nervous about the day when I will never have to search for anything. The information will come to me.
Davies, Frank. FTC reviews adds shaped by online use. SiliconValley.com Nov. 2, 2007
retrieved online November 7, 2007.
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