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Behavioral Targeting Ad Program

Posted on | March 13, 2009 | No Comments

It fills me with intimidation to read about Google’s new initiative; the behavioral targeting ad program. Am I the only one who thinks about 1984 and big brother in general when online habits are so thoroughly mapped and exploited?

EFF (Electronica Frontier Foundation) writes: “Today Google launched its behavioral targeting ad program, which it calls “interest-based advertising.” This move has been widely expected once Google completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick one year ago today.

The issues with behavioral advertising have been with us for over a decade (DoubleClick was founded in 1996, and privacy issues soon followed), and have grown as more people use more services online and more information has become available about your online behavior. Many, including EFF, are concerned about behavioral targeting because it means that information about how you use the web is collected, stored and associated with a cookie on your browser, which can track you across different websites and online services.” Read the full article here.

Such an initiative cannot, thankfully, be launched without heavy counter reaction in the web-sphere. Slashdot has posted that “(…) in response to Google’s recently announced plans to expand the tracking of users, the international anti-advertising magazine Adbusters proposes that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated ‘click fraud’ in order to undermine Google’s advertising program in order to force Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy. They have released a GreaseMonkey script that automatically clicks on all AdSense ads.” Read that piece here.

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