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Targeted Advertising Coming To Cable TV
The New York Times reports that Cablevision Systems is testing a new project in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and some areas of New Jersey to bring targeted advertising to television audiences. "The technology requires no hardware or installation in a subscriber's home, so viewers may not realize they are seeing ads different from a neighbor's. But during the same show, a 50-something male may see an ad for, say, high-end speakers from Best Buy, while his neighbors with children may see one for a Best Buy video game." The test deployment includes 500,000 households, and separates viewers by demographic data from Experian. "Experian has data on individuals that it collects through public records, registries and other sources. It matches the name and address of the subscriber to what it knows about them, and assigns demographic characteristics to households. (The match is a blind one: advertisers do not know what name and address they are advertising to, Cablevision executives said.)"
A little weird, but I'm not really alarmed that this is being used. It (for better or worse) is public data - Taking advantage of it to bore me as little as possible with ads seems perfectly appropriate. Frankly, if I have to watch ads, I'd rather see ads for computer equipment and stuff than for My Little Pony Playhouse...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Cool... No more tampon commercials at my house...
They might have a tough time finding product placement for this household, since the account's in my grandfather's name, and he died in 2003. Maybe some ads for psychics?
Haida Manga
He didn't mention the fact he's 32.
That we do a DMCA on people's personal information.
Remove the concept of 'public records' and make it all PRIVATE.
If Experian wants to collect personal information on you, they should have to pay a fee to you and agree to a standard distribution restriction agreement that makes them come to you for permission to distribute the data elsewhere.
Now of course credit card companies have to ask and pay you for the right to get that information but they can also charge higher fees, too.
Violations bring the same penalties as with "pirating" a mp3.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
If they can do that then they can take off the ads for phone sex when I complain! I've been watching F1 GPs in Australia at 11pm and had 6 of them in a row.
On the contrary, it appears that they're already running targeted advertising and have you pegged as belonging to the "sad lonely loser" demographic ;-P
She'll probably get adverts for applying for citizenship followed by adverts for divorce lawyers.