Users Know Advertisers Watch Them, and Hate It

Chris Blanc tips an Ars writeup on a survey of consumer attitudes toward targeted advertising. The results of the survey, conducted for TRUSTe, confirm that advertisers are in a tough spot. "[The survey company] randomly selected 1,015 nationally representative adults... Although only 40 percent of the group was familiar with the term 'behavioral targeting,' most users were well aware of the practice. 57 percent reported that they weren't comfortable their activities [were being] tracked for advertising purposes, even if the information couldn't be tied to their names or real-life identities. Simultaneously, 72 percent of those surveyed said that they find online advertising annoying when the ads are not relevant to their needs..."

Comments

Re:Big deal?

[cstdenis]

Unless you are willing to pay for every site you visit, with this kind of attitude you'll run out of working sites pretty fast. The money has to come from somewhere, and few people are willing to pay it out of their own pocket.