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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."

8 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
    1. Re:Amazon has already done this... by misleb · · Score: 5, Funny

      First time I saw "personals" ads on a web page that seemed to know what city I lived in, I kinda freaked.

      "Meet sexy singles in [your town]." And then it shows some "example" profiles of some women who are most likely just models. Then I look closer and I think "Oh my God, I've slept with these women! How did they know?" Then I realized that they just got my location from my IP and that I've slept with pretty much all the attractive women around here so it didn't really matter which ones they chose.

      Good news is that it reminded me to go get tested for STDs.

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  3. Sounds scary by flaming+error · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But the real problem isn't that they can *show* who you are, it's that they *know* who you are.

    Showing it would just be disclosing our already existing vulnerability.

    1. 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.

  4. Coming Soon ... by daveime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well now that the EU have approved the Google / Doubleclick merger, expect ads VERY soon with your name on them ... and possibly a lot more.

  5. 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.

  6. Re:Mobil card ms are NUTS... by Your.Master · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can ms claim a person's GIVEN name is NOT personal? Sound's like they've got too much duroquinone in their brains. The NERVE of them to assert a thing. This is the problem with secondary sources, they make the slightest change in wording and people interpret it so differently.

    Microsoft does not say that your first name is not personal information. Their policy prevents the spread of personally identifiable information, which they define as information which could be used by theirselves or others to connect data (including your first name) to you, the individual. Now, using your first name might be a little dodgy in that you might be the only person in the world with the same first name. But generally speaking, you cannot match a person to their data with only first names.