Student Project Could Kill Digital Ad Targeting 177
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Ad Age:
"[Rachel Law's] creation, called 'Vortex,' is a browser extension that's part game, part ad-targeting disrupter that helps people turn their user profiles and the browsing information into alternate fake identities that have nothing to do with reality. People who use the browser tool, which works with Firefox and Chrome, effectively confuse the technologies that categorize web audiences into likely running shoe buyers, in-market auto buyers, or moms interested in cooking and football. ... It's a bit like the ad blocker extensions of yore, except it scrambles information to trick ad targeters, all in service of an addictive game deemed 'Site Miner,' which allows players to fish for cookies visualized as sea creatures. Players can gobble up cookies Pac-Man style, creating a pool of profile information that has nothing to do with their actual web behavior. ... Vortex features a profile switcher that people can use and share to take on a new identity while browsing the web. 'It's a way of masking your identity across networks,' she said."
Targeted ads are better than untargeted ads (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a cookie mixer (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd thought of doing that as part of one of my browser add-ons, but it has problems. The general idea is that you send your cookies to a central site which sends them out to others to confuse tracking. As the article says, "The Vortex system will build a database of cookies gathered by players." So you've traded multiple limited data collection systems for one central one. There are a number of obvious ways that can backfire.
Just turn off third party cookies. Or run Abine's Do Not Track Me.
Re:Targeted ads are NOT better than untargeted ads (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll give you one reason: echo chamber. I don't particularly like seeing ads at all (yes, it's the price for "free" content); however, I like to broaden my perspective on the world. If I receive targeted ads for items that are of interest to me and a very small slice of society, I'm at terrible risk for mis-perceiving society at large. For example, I don't like (almost any) hip hop music. But I don't want to be denied the opportunity to be informed (via ads) that much of the rest of "western civilization" thinks it's great.
So yes, I want all my ads UN-targeted. If I need something unusual, I can bloody well find it for myself using The Google.
This doesn't even address the fact that the data accumulated to create targeted ads can (has, and will continue to be) misused for other purposes. For example,let's say your particular buying habits correlate with certain anti-social or unhealthy lifestyle choices, but that you don't have these particular negative attributes. A prospective employer or insurer might still use them to label you as a bad risk, and deny you a job or insurance policy.
Companies don't collect information about you for YOUR benefit.
Re:Targeted ads are better than untargeted ads (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure why I should hate targeted ads. I actually see ads for things I'm interested in... instead of random stuff.
Nice theory.
What actually happens is you only ever see ads for something you bought two years ago and have no intention of buying again. Either that or something you looked at once and thought "How can people be so stupid...?" then you spend the next six months seeing dancing adverts for it.
Human evolution could also work (Score:5, Interesting)