Thursday, November 19, 2009
Google and Behavioral Targeting
Since the rise of the internet, online advertising has always played a factor. Now, no matter what website you go on, you are most likely to see an advertisement somewhere on the page. In an article written in 2007 by Eric Auchard titled Google Wary of Behavioral Targeting in Online Ads, it talks about how Google is trying to find more connections between searches and searchers. At the same time, Google is backing away from selling tools to advertisers who draw lines between all your online activity.
"That is not something that we have participated in, for a variety of reasons," says Susan Wojcicki, vice president of Google's product management for advertising.The problem that most people have with behavioral targeting is the privacy issues. Many feel that it is invading on their personal online actions and that it may not have any purpose in conducting research between searches and information gathered from those searches.
This article that I got this information from was written and published in 2007. I figured that was a while ago so either they found other ways around this or they simply gave in. I found an article from March 2009, about Google and its more recent behavioral targeting policies. What I understood from this article is that while these years have passed by, most of people's general online activity was monitored through other sources, so the information was already out there. They are working on ways to opt out of this online activity tracking offering plug-ins that opt out of storing cookies, or they have an Ad preference managing tool.
A representative from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Markey said
"he and his colleagues plan to introduce legislation next year, a sort of online-privacy Bill of Rights, that would require that consumers must opt in to the tracking of their online behavior..."
Labels: Advertising, Behavior Targeting, Google, Marketing, privacy
