Coming Soon, Web Ads Tailored To Your Zip+4

On the heels of Apple's intention to collect and sell detailed location data comes word that Juniper is putting together technology that will allow any ISP to present you to advertisers by your Zip+4. An anonymous reader sends this snip from Wired: "Your Internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood. If your local pizza joint wants to find you, they will have a new way to do that. National advertisers will be able to market directly to neighborhoods with like characteristics across the whole country using demographic data they've been gathering for decades. ... Juniper Networks, which sells routers to ISPs, plans to start selling them add-on technology from digital marketer Feeva that affixes a tag inside the HTTP header, consisting of each user's 'zip+4' — a nine-digit zipcode that offers more accuracy than five-digit codes. Juniper hopes to sell the software to ISPs starting this summer, having announced a partnership with Feeva earlier this year."

Comments

Why not?

[haqrboi]

They're going to show us ads no matter what, at least this gives a chance they might be a little more relevant.

Re:Why not?

[betterunixthanunix]

Why should we be giving up on privacy for the benefit of marketing companies? If I need to find local business, I look at a directory of local businesses, so what do I gain by having advertisements thrown in my face?

Re:Why not?

[characterZer0]

We are going to block ads no matter what, so why do we care how relevant they are?

Re:Why not?

[L4t3r4lu5]

As a letter:

"Dear Business Owner,

I noticed that you have started to advertise through my ISPs Zip+4 locality based advertising system. Unfortunately, I believe that this system is intrusive and an infringement not only on my right to privacy and anonymity, but also encroaches on the data allowance I pay for which is already prohibitively capped by my ISP.

Thanks to the government allowing the ISP a monopoly of the "last mile" of the connection, I cannot switch my ISP to one not offering this intrusive advertising scheme. I can, however, refuse to offer my business to those who make use of it.

Sincerely,

A lost customer."

Re:Why not?

[Lehk228]

be aware if you DO set a change of address with the post office, anyone may find it out by mailing your old address with "Change Service Requested" or "Address service Requested" endorsement added to the envelope

Per http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressservices/moveupdate/ace.htm

Address Service Requested.

* Months 1 - 12: the mailpiece is forwarded; no charge; a separate notice of the new address is provided; an address correction fee is charged.
* Months 13 - 18: the mailpiece is returned with the new address attached; no charge.
* After month 18 or if undeliverable: the mailpiece is returned with reason for nondelivery attached; no charge.

Change Service Requested. Separate notice of new address or reason for nondelivery provided; in either case, address-correction fee is charged; mailpiece is not forwarded or returned but disposed of by the Postal Service. This endorsement option is available for First-Class Mail only when used in conjunction with electronic ACS(TM) Service.

it is important that anyone who is trying to avoid being found by private entities either not file a COA or do so to a PO box or other alternate mailing address. in particular if you are hiding from criminals / stalker/ abusive spouse

We've long ago slipped down that slope

[jamesh]

Almost every web page I visit seems to know where I live down to the town or suburb. I think we slipped down this slope a long time ago.

IPv6 might wipe that database clean effectively, but it won't take long to repopulate.

Dear Vendors, Stop breaking the Internet

[Fortunato_NC]

Seriously, guys. You already f'ed up DNS beyond recognition, now you want to break http, too? Someone at Juniper needs to kick the marketers out of the engineering department.

Re:Dear Vendors, Stop breaking the Internet

[eiMichael]

Now if the MAFIAA just ran a torrent index they could just send out settlement letters to everyone with that zip+4!

SSL

[Aladrin]

Even more reason to use SSL for every site. Not like I needed another.

No

[DarkKnightRadick]

I do not want this. Go away with your ever more intrusive advertising. GO AWAY!

This is worse

[AltairDusk]

I for one am not happy about my ISP who I pay to provide me with internet access and who I expect to protect my privacy doling out my information to advertisers. Advertisers figuring it out with the help of third parties is one thing, I can't hold the ISP responsible for that but this is simply unacceptable.

Re:This is worse

[Shakrai]

Then I had to update my Cox billing information, and they got the new number.

You didn't have to give them your phone number, you decided to give them your phone number. Whose fault is that? AFAIK there's no law requiring you to provide the cable company with an accurate phone number. They might get pissed off if you don't but who cares? They won't terminate your service over the issue.

I can count on one hand how many outfits have my phone number and physical address. I even managed to get NYS to print my PO Box on my drivers license so I don't have to worry about every idiot that I buy beer from knowing where I live. This has caused me some grief at various times (TSA drones insist on seeing a physical address to let you board even though the passport is an acceptable form of ID and contains no address, figure that one out....) but I regard that as a fair trade in exchange for the privacy benefits.

re: Just go away

[King_TJ]

You can yell all you want for the advertisers to "just go away", but the problem is, the collective "we" that use the Internet DEMANDED that monster, with our insistence on free services everywhere.

I don't like the ad banners a bit, but I also realize I'm grown used to the idea of visiting my choice of tech or news sites without paying monthly subscription fees. I use several free email sites, and I've got a places that host my photo collections for free and keep backups of 2GB or so of my files for free. I've got some (again free) software on my iPad that lets me send and receive unlimited SMS messages over it, using a new local phone number they assigned me. Google is willing to assign me yet another free local phone number to handle voice mail services for me, au gratis. Need a quick translation of some text from one language to another, or maybe just a conversion between units of measure? Free sites out there give you those features too. Plenty of other message forums let you share info on your favorite hobby or cheat codes and walkthroughs for your favorite games. The list goes on and on. Do you REALLY think all these things should just be done out the kindess of people's hearts, despite the ongoing expense of hosting them?

Adblock.

[the_raptor]

So location specific ads that I still won't see because I have Adblock?

I wonder when the advertising industry will figure out the current amount of advertising has well exceeded the point of diminishing returns and is making consumers go out of there way to get rid of it.

Re:Tor plus some similar tech.

[BiggerIsBetter]

Really, I guess a technical way around this is to use Tor. And for everyone to have a Tor exit node. Screw the corporations and their fucking advertising!

I agree in principle, but when advertisers piss the technical public off so much that we actually hate kiddie porn less, only then you'll see the uptake of Tor and FreeNet.

It's a price for free sites I'm willing to pay

[Ice Tiger]

Someone has to pay the bills for running a 'free' site and that is generally advertising.

If that advertising is localised and potentially more relevant for me then I don't mind 'paying' this price. This is why even though I have the option I don't disable advertising on Slashdot.

That's the way it was.

[professorguy]

I've been on the internet since 1984. Back then, there was all kinds of discussion and many, many 'services' and info. And guess how it all got there? Why, what do you know? It was done out of the kindness of people's hearts.

Then about 1988, the marketers showed up. It's been downhill ever since.

So can humans do things for each other just to be nice? Yes, as long as those humans don't include marketing assholes.

Re:That's the way it was.

[King_TJ]

To be fair, the guy is correct about how the net worked back around '84. But like you say, there were FAR fewer regular users back then, and most content was plain ASCII text, suitable for transfer via dial-up modem speeds.

As you scale everything up, costs increase.

Also, I'd argue that an awful lot of those "free" services you saw on the net back in the mid 80's were FAR from free. They were simply being funded by your tax dollars or by the tuition dollars of students, since much of it was built and hosted on university or research lab servers.

Here we go

[ph0rk]

As Anderton walks in the door, gets his new eyes scanned, and we hear a voice say:


STORE VOICE: Hello, Mr. Yakamoto! Welcome back to the Gap.
STORE VOICE: How'd those assorted tank tops work out for you?
STORE VOICE: Come on in and see how good you look in one of our new Winter sweaters.

Who is talking about 100% privacy?

[betterunixthanunix]

"Hell, go start your own society where you all have 100% privacy."

Nobody expects us to have total privacy -- no such society has ever existed. However, there are certainly people who would prefer the other extreme: no privacy at all. We are no longer talking about necessary sacrifices of privacy, we are talking about excessive and deliberate efforts to erode any privacy at all.

"Also, don't label all advertisers and marketers under one blanket label please.
Some companies are actually decent and just want to help people find the things they want.
You mentioned one of them already, the local directories of businesses in your area."

Sorry about that, but it is becoming increasingly rare to see marketing companies that are satisfied with traditional approaches to helping people find what they are looking for. True, a local directory is a marketing effort of sorts, and when run by a business that business is certainly a marketing company.

Re:Easily blocked by techies?

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be easily handled with a browser plugin.

Except not, if this is really handled at the ISP level, then anything done by the client is pointless, you are being MITM'd, and the party you are connecting to WANTS you to be, your screwed!

This is like if the mailman inspected every letter from your mailbox and 'helpfully' added return addresses to all your letters.