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Americans Don't Want Targeted Ads
itwbennett writes "A survey by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania finds that US residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. 66% of those surveyed said they don't want tailored, or targeted, online ads and when asked if online ad vendors should deliver targeted ads by tracking customers' behavior across multiple Web sites, 86% of the 1,000 respondents said no. 35% of respondents said executives of companies that use personal information illegally should face jail time, and 18% said those companies should be put out of business. 'While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible,' the study said. 'In high percentages, [US residents] stand on the side of privacy advocates.'"
Do you think the Marketers give a rats ass?
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Wy do people think things like TiVO, Hulu,... are so successful?
I believe the general public is tired of be bombarded to "BUY MORE!"
To make people aware of what they don't necessarily know about or necessarily need/want. Doesn't targeted marketing miss out on this aspect of advertising?
If I can not smoke in heaven, then I shall not go. -- Mark Twain
marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible,'
Did I just read that right? Americans want advertisement? Yeah, I want advertisements, just like I want another hole in my dick. What sort of a psychotic, delusional dream world must whoever this quote was mined from live in?
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Two problems.. The population seems to think the automated systems care more about their privacy .. they just want to sell you stuff, not sell the history off to some PI that your ex hired ..
And it's a loaded question. Article headlines saying Americans don't want targeted ads, but really it's Americans hate getting spied on. Had you have simply asked the question at hand "would you like advertising that is more likely to be involved or associated with your interests or your current activities."
Arguably they could say your not allowed to show ads about football, when your watching the football game. Cause after all that's targeting your advertisement ..
What most of us want is NO ADS. They're annoying, distracting and whole purpose for being is to manipulate people.
If we are in the market for said product we'd go shopping. There has yet to be a commercial that has moved me with their... oooh, shiny...
CAPTCHA: cringe
If I must have ads, I would rather have targeted ads for something I might actually want or use, than things I do not want or use.
Lessons we could learn, at Amazon or Netflix if I say I am not interested in Season 1 or CSI: Anywhere, DON'T offer me season 2, 3, 4 and 5. There is a Circle of Hell reserved for recommendation systems that offer me the same product over and over in different colors.
If I bought a new Lens Kit for my Canon DSLR, then you offer me a Canon DSLR and I say "I already got one" don't offer me a Nikon DSLR.
Somehow they need to find a way to tag their products as Series, and also Durable Goods vs Accessories or Refil kits, not just as a bunch of tangentally related SKU#s that this customer or that customer bought.
Maybe as with Tivo we need Ad filtering devices that can Blacklist Ads we don't like, for products we don't need. This is really the only way to keep your "preferences" data at home and not have it abused.
Americans don't want their web usage tracked.
They likely do want targeted advertisements. But the dislike of tracking wins out. Of course 90% of them signed up for a supermarket discount card and pay for everything with a credit card so they don't really care, they just think they do.
I'd rather see an ad for a video game than for tampons. Of course I'd prefer not to see an ad at all, but that's irrelevant.
I'd also prefer that any random web advertising company can't see all the things I've purchased and web sites I've visited.
Ask someone "would you like me to constantly monitor your life and give you adds based on what we learn about you?" and you'll get "no" every time. If you ask "would you prefer that adds be relevant to your life?" and you'll get "yes" much more often.
Add that to the fact that people will say "I hate that idea" but then if you were to have them browse with targeted adds and without (and distract them by telling them it's a study about a new web browser, but just use IE with a skin or something) and ask them after which one they thought handled adds better, they'd pick targeted adds without knowing why. A survey is not scientific, and a good pollster can make a poll say what they want it to say, and in this day and age, often they are trying to show a result rather than learn something.
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No sane person wants any kind of ad, targeted or not.
I find the targeted ads on Google searches to be useful. When I'm searching for information on Product X and there's a sponsored link along the lines of "Buy Product X here for $...", I'll often click that link if the stated price is reasonable. Well-targeted non-intrusive ads can be quite helpful for comparison shopping.
But more importantly, I don't think I, or the majority of people, like knowing that a company is rifling through my 'personal stuff' to find out what I like and dislike.
You may not like *knowing* it, but *they're already doing it*. How do you think those direct mailers figure out where to send their advertisements? Well, for starters, they go to a company like Experian, which knows an unbelievable amount about you thanks to things like credit card purchases, club cards, and so forth (including fun stuff like whether or not the lease on your car is about to expire). They then tell Experian "Hey, dudes, I want to target single males 18-25 who make between 50k and 75k who live in or around Washington DC", and they get back a list of addresses.
In short: you're already being tracked. You been tracked for *decades*. The only difference is, people are actually paying a bit of attention. Unfortunately, they're missing the forest for the trees.
While what you say is true, you seem to imply that the advertiser and customer interests are mutually exclusive. If a company offers me a product that I want, then I am happy to give them money and they are happy to take it from me. Everyone wins. I think most people would agree that they prefer to see ads for things they want to buy, and would prefer not to see ads for stuff they don't want to buy. The problem comes when your privacy is invaded to target ads. Or, more specifically, when the information used to target the ads is used in a way the customer does not approve of or is sold to the highest bidder.
Gaa... was trying to hit preview...
I don't click them either, but mostly for other reasons.
1. Those ads cost the company money every time they are clicked, eventually raising prices for us the consumers, and
2. Clicking on them reinforces to the advertiser that the ads work, thereby creating more ads.
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The article isn't so much about targeted advertising as it is how the user's data is obtained. What the article actually says is we don't want to be tracked across multiple sites. It doesn't mention targeted advertising using data acquired on a single site.
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Exactly. People want 'pull' adverts, they don't want 'push' adverts. If I express an interest in a product or service, then I want as many companies as possible to compete for my business. If I don't have an interest in a product or service then I don't want companies trying to artificially generate this interest. I no longer own a TV because I got fed up with watching irrelevant ads[1]. I now rent DVDs and stream video from the iPlayer. My time is more valuable to me than it is to an advertiser. Given the low probability of generating a sale from any given advert, this has to be the case. I'd much rather pay with money than pay with my time for things like TV shows and films, because I get better value.
[1] Really. I am never going to be the target market for feminine hygiene products. If I am ever in a situation where I need to buy them, I will expect to have been told exactly which brand to buy. I also don't care about car insurance (I don't have a car), how to get out of debt (I'm not in debt, largely because I'm not stupid enough to buy the kind of financial products these people are offering), and so on.
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