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Behavioral Search & Advertising On Its Way?
cyberianpan writes "Imagine a world where advertisers would be able to predict your detailed behavior online. They would know when you are about to buy a song, a car, a present for your spouse — they would know virtually everything you are thinking.
With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google now has access to the cookies and subsequently browsing history of vast numbers of web users. It would be fair to say that greater than 85% of Internet users frequently come into contact with ads served by DoubleClick.
Google could potentially have access to not only the majority of the world's search history but its browsing and e-commerce history as well. The company could know more about web surfers than they know about themselves."
What about people that do searches for their relatives? Or their pets? My dog has glaucoma. I'd be troubled greatly if my researching glaucoma medicines (dogs use the same medicine as people for this disease) caused any sort of reaction from anyone other than a pharmacy to offer me lower priced drops/pills. (Hey, check this guy out - he's researching glaucoma medicine and new cars - no cheap loans for him or insurance!!!!)
:)
I'm doubly glad for adblock and *doubleclick*
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
TrackMeNot is a Firefox extension that protects against search data profiling by issuing randomized queries to popular search-engines with fake data.
If you want to read my mind by analyzing my search queries, I hope you're prepared to sift through a mountain of noise.
I appreciate that these posts are tagged as humorous, but it is a serious trap that I've found many people falling into. AdBlock does not protect your privacy (as far as I can tell). The cookies are still there. Use Cookie Safe.
Beetle B.