How much is tracking data really worth?

[md2000]

OTOH, Google and them are pretty dense. Once upon a time, I googled servers to see if buying one, even a generic one, was cost effective for what I wanted to do compared to a regular PC. It wasn’t. For months afterward, ads for servers followed me around. I got bored one day, I saw an article on making wood sip models; I googled several ships and their models on Amamzon and Google. now those ads follow me around. Months after my overseas rip, I’m still nagged by ads about finding cheap hotels in XXXX. Long after I bought my last camera, I’m still plagued by ads for it and similar ones.

Then there’s the jokes about “Help! My TIVO thinks I’m gay!” (Oh, you liked Will & Grace? How about these shows?), or the fellow who complained that Walmart(?) knew his teenage daughter was pregnant before he did. They’d bought her search history, started mailing her maternity product flyers; their solution to such complaints, was to send flyers that mixed in maternity items with a plethora innocuous other items… Ignoring the obvious that a pregnant teen living at home probably does not have a lot of disposable income.

I suppose when people have a dedicated interest, targeted advertising is good. But with people who have ADHD browsing habits, aggravated by the internet’s vast range, it is no more productive than anything else…

[Amateur_Barbarian]

Once again - targeted advertising as in the above posts is only one shallow facet of the tracking and targeting model. To assume it’s all to shove “targeted” ads in your face is to miss the many more important (and disturbing) aspects.

Advertising is just marketing’s hand puppet.

[bob_2]

@Amateur_Barbarian

First, google up “reductio ad absurdum.”

Put as briefly as possible, massive consumer tracking and data analysis means the whole economic net gets closed a lot more tightly around you. You don’t get more choices or your preferred choices; you get the choices discovered to bring maximum revenue from the target population.

I already know what reductio ad absurdum means.

Your reasoning assumes that I only choose from the advertising presented to me. If I am in the market for a cat flap, I will not click on the first, or the most flashy ad that comes my way. I will use the internet to research what’s available and find out what others think.

I do accept that there are people who will see an ad on FB, think “that looks nice”, and click it. I also think that the general population will become more discriminating, not less as advertisers try to steer them away from the better products.

This:

This is the counter-argument to the data-selling panic. The companies can lead consumers, they can tempt consumers, they can dangle myriads of products in front of consumers, but they have to offer not merely perceived value but net positive perceived value to the changes to stick. Nothing in data mining has changed this basic fact.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@bob_2

Your reasoning assumes that I only choose from the advertising presented to me.

No, actually it doesn’t. You are persisting in the mistaken notion that this is all about advertising, when frankly we could ban the term and concept from this discussion and lose nothing.

That you don’t see a Bud ad and run for a beer is not an argument. That you believe you are a self-directed consumer who makes only rational, researched decisions is admirable but almost certainly not wholly true. That advertising is oftentimes a sock puppet within a marketing effort is a verity.

But thanks for letting me know not to send any cat flap ads your way.