Internet Ads

The thing with online advertisement, at least nowadays, is that it is targeted towards an individual user. What does this mean? It means that the internet looks at your browser history, status updates, GPS locations etc. to determine which ads are most suitable towards you. This is cool and useful because it allows for ads for personalized ads, as in the ads displayed to one user is different than ads displayed to another. Ads that to pertain to you and your interests are displayed to you, there are no more generic ads that are just shown because some company paid for the space. I can see how this is ethical because it connects users directly to the things they are interested in. It's like going grocery shopping but instead of you getting all the groceries yourself, a worker knows what it is you are looking for and just gives it to you. It's useful and convenient, yes, however it also comes at a cost.

In order for websites and the internet to know what ads to show you, they have to access your personal information. They access your browser history, status updates, GPS locations etc. as aforementioned, however they even go as far to look at public records and your credit card transactions. Although the thought of personalized ads and advertisements are cool, but to go as far as looking at a person's credit card transactions is taking things a little too far in my opinion. It's looking through my friends credit card statements to decide what I was going to get them for their birthday. Not only is this unnecessary, it's also kind of a full on invasion of their privacy. I know I would be mad if someone intercepted and looked through my credit card statements, no one needs to know what it is I'm buying, that's personal.

From my understanding, this is all done through the use of algorithms, I'm not quite sure how these algorithms work, all I know is that it keys my data and uses that to produce ads that reflect the data that is collected. The funny thing is, often times I find ads that don't have anything to do with what I am interested in. I have no clue why too, it's just the way these things usually go for me, however it's nice to know that I'm not the only one this happens to. Sara Watson writes that her internet döppelganger and herself are two different people. That often times the ads that are shown to her have nothing to do with what she is interested in, often to hilarious effect. This is also a comfort but also a little unnerving because the results of this search suggests that there is something in my data that indicates that these are my interests. Honestly I think the ads are annoying, mainly the video ones like at the beginning of youtube videos that I can't skip, or the ones that automatically start when I go to a website or open their own windows. Pretty much any ad that interrupts what I am doing on the internet is intolerable to me. The static ones that appear at the bottom of links of on the sides of the page are more tolerable because I can't accidentally click on them and they don't randomly appear when I'm in the middle of doing something. They're less invasive.

I think that personalized ads are cool, but a little unethical because they access my private data and collect data on me. But in the end, I guess I can't be too mad because the internet is a public thing meaning your subject to anything and everything. Also in a sense, it's like clicking accept to the terms and agreements of the internet that aren't necessarily explicit when you first start using it.