Microsoft Using Personal Data to Target Ads 139
smooth wombat writes "Microsoft is combing personal data with your search habits to produce targeted ads. Users who use Microsoft's Hotmail email service, msn.com news service and other Microsoft-owned sites will see ads specific to their demographic and interests. From the article: 'Microsoft executives say the system works anonymously and they won't pass on people's names or addresses to advertisers. Executives say they want to foster confidence in users to build a long-term business, and one that gives an incentive to not misuse personal details.' "We're in the early days of behavioral targeting but it's an idea whose time has come,' says Simon Andrews, chief digital strategy officer for WPP Group's MindShare, a large buyer of ad time. 'There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.'"
welcome to the world of marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't use this to hunt you down, spy on you in the bathroom, or brainwash you. What they do is figure out, statistically, based on this info, what you will buy, and try to sell that to you. It's how they make money more effeciently, and when done right, it's a service to you too. This is on the rise too, the best thing to do here is to embrace it and encourage companies to behave responsibly with this new-found knowledge.
Re:If It Looks Like Spam... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Gmail presents you with ads based on the content of the page you are *currently* looking at. It does not rely on any personal information about you.
It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is identifying who are every time you use any of their web services and building up a persistent personal profile of what you are interested in. So next time your significant other asks you why she keeps getting porn ads on every site she visits when she uses your computer, you can point her to this article
Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Even more so ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Last October, he was searching Yahoo for a website of a conference that was held in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Less than an hour later he receives an email from Expedia, which he used before to book travel (and probably checked off or left checked, a box that says "send me spam").
The email from Expedia says:
So, does Yahoo sell the info in real time to rival Microsoft, rather than their own Yahoo Travel? Or what?
It can't be a coincidence for sure.