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Ads With Your Name On Them

Posted by kdawson on from the are-you-creeped-out-yet dept.

eldavojohn writes "The NYTimes is running an interesting blog piece on the answers Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, & Google gave to the question: Can they show you an ad with your name on it? The results: 'Microsoft says it could use only a person's first name [which it doesn't consider personal information]. AOL and Yahoo could use a full name but only on their sites, not the other sites on which they place ads. Google isn't sure; it probably could, but it doesn't know the names of most of its users.' Now whether or not they would use this information is a different story. AOL has no plans to, Yahoo is open to it, and Microsoft has implemented a technological barrier preventing it (despite behavioral and demographic data being served to the ad companies). Although Google might use name information at some point, they don't now do so; nor do they use behavioral or demographic data."

4 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Mobil card by Intron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Exxxxxon/Mobil gas pumps used to put your name up when you used your credit card to buy gas. Not for any reason, just because they could. I felt it was intrusive, since anybody at a neighboring pump now knows my name, but kind of a minor annoyance.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
  2. Amazon has already done this... by nebaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Several years ago I was surfing some non-amazon related site, and there was an add at the bottom from amazon, with my name on it (presumably a amazon hosted ad that looked at my cookie information). Really freaked me out. I haven't seen anything like this for a while though.

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
  3. I work for an ad agency. by verbalcontract · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And I've written text-based ads for Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

    But I can't imagine anyone would want to purchase a product based on an ad with their name on it. "Hey Morley! Buy some laundry detergent!" I'd get freaked out, and I'd forever associate that creepy feeling with the product. And I'd never buy it.

    I imagine most people would feel the same way. And I imagine most copywriters -- who are less like the oily marketeers you're thinking of -- would feel the same.

    I say, if some oily marketeer wants to use this feature -- and it is only at most my first name -- he deserves to scare off his customers.

  4. Re:Sounds scary by Obfuscant · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A couple of my credit card companies did this (call me by name when they answered the phone) for a while. It REALLY bugged me. Not that they knew my name, but that they assumed that my work phone number, used by a whole room full of people, was always me calling.

    They stopped. I asked why, and they said it really creeped their customers out.