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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
When given the choice between targeted and non targeted advertising, I would pick targeted. When given the choice between any form of advertising and no advertising, I would pick no advertising.
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. It gives you a feeling of having your privacy invaded. Just a few hours ago I wrote my wife to say I had gotten a stain on my shirt from lunch, and google was nice enough to put up a stain remover advertisement right after I fired off the email. It is a little bit off putting.
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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No targeted ads!
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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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If all I ever got was targeted ads I would know nothing about feminine hygiene products. Knowing these dirty little secrets that women have is part of being a teenager. I would have missed out on a lot of immaturity if all they showed me was ads for Atari 2600 games, pizza and the pepsi challenge.
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.
I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests so targeted ads are a good thing in that respect. On the other hand, I generally don't want companies doing what it takes to understand me personally well enough to target ads for me. If Amazon uses my past browsing and purchasing patterns on their site to make recommendations that's o.k. by me. What I don't want is a third party using my interactions with a company in order to target ads. It feels creepy and I resent the intrusion.
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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.
I don't click on any of the ads on Google searches. Call me jaded, but I don't feel like being redirected to a site which redirects me to a site which redirects me to a site which is a spam site of some sort. I don't trust the ad links, and I don't click any of them. I don't even click the sponsored link. Ever. I've just become too jaded to any kind of commercialism online to ever bother rewarding a company(which I might very well be searching for to begin with to purchase from) to buying ad space. This goes for YouTube ads(the embedded ads that I immediately X out of. And no, I really don't believe that anyone on YouTube should be paid for making videos and posting them online.
To summarize: If I come across an ad/sponsored link in my online travels, I refuse to click on it. Not because I necessarily hate the company, but because I neither trust the ads I come across(spamming/phishing possibilities) nor do I wish to reward a company for intruding into my private life. Of course, I hate 90% of ads, period(Internet, TV, newspaper, magazine, billboard). However, Super Bowl ads do occasionally make me laugh.
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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.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
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.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
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.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
No sane person wants any kind of ad
There are some exceptions.
I own and operate a movie theatre, and I print and mail out several thousand flyers each month listing the movies that will be playing for that month.
I hear complaints from customers every month if they don't receive the monthly flyer in the mail for whatever reason.
I also have a mailing list of people who I send the flyer to that live outside of the "general distribution" area. I don't even advertise that "service" in any way; people ask me if I can mail them the flyer, so I do.
So again, there are always exceptions; it depends on the type of advertising and what's being advertised. If you're genuinely interested in my flyer, then it becomes useful information ("What should we do tonight?") and not just another ad.
On the other hand, I'm a big believer in Privoxy, Noscript and cookie management on my computers.
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Amen. The summary says Americans don't want targeted ads--which is quite a different statement from the much clearer statement further down that we don't want targeted ads created from following our behavior across the internet.
I *do* want targeted ads. When I sign up for a store's loyalty program (like I did last week), I *don't* want five ad emails from the company in the next seven days pushing me clothes that have no relation to my purchasing habits (which is exactly what happened). It should be no surprise that I'm a fan of "permission marketing" as espoused by Seth Godin. If Netflix can do such a remarkable job of guessing my preferences with a handful of data points, these stores should too. And don't bother me otherwise.
The part of the survey scenario that's creepy is the single entity tracking my viewing habits across multiple sites.
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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