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?

[AnonymousClown]

Yeah!

I'm tired of getting those ads in the lower right hand corner of those girls that say, "I'm hot for you!" or "I'm ready to have sex." only to see that they're several towns over. I want the sluts in my local area!

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?

[gEvil (beta)]

I might not have a problem with that, but my town is small enough that my zip+4 uniquely identifies my family's PO box.

That's true of nearly any PO Box. At the same time, narrowing it down to a single PO Box really does nothing to help them since your 'location' is wherever the post office is located, which they could have figured out from the regular 5 digit zip code.

Re:Why not?

[erroneus]

They will not stop pushing. They will not stop moving forward until we all start pushing back.

I push back as much as I can. Adblock+NoScript is only the beginning but a damned good start. But that's just what individuals can do and most will not. So in addition to that, people have to start complaining to law makers and government agencies about it. I mean sure, you can identify people responsible for the excessive advertising and place roadkill on their doorstep with a note about "stop flooding me with advertising" but I seriously doubt they will care or stop. Advertisers and marketers feel entitled to do the most they can do. In fact, their jobs depend on a "growth metric" so if they are not pushing that line forward and even holding steady, they will get fired. It's an ugly business dumping its ugliness all over us. They simply don't know what respectful means.

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?

[imakemusic]

place road-kill on their doorstep with a note about "stop flooding me with advertising"

...and then place two the next day with a sign saying "SPECIAL TWO-FOR-ONE OFFER!"

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?

[Shakrai]

Not quite. Zip+4 narrows it down to no more than 100 possibilities, but you need to know the delivery point to get the exact address. The USPS represents every single deliverable address in the country with an eleven digit number. Five digits of zip code, four digits of +4 extension and two digits of delivery point. You can find your delivery point code by using the USPS zip code finder and clicking on "mailing industry information".

There are a few exceptions to this rule of course. Most PO boxes have a unique zip+4 code, so the delivery point is redundant for them.

Re:Why not?

[Shakrai]

Ah, you beat me to it.

It's amusing to see how Adult Friend Finder and similar services compute your city based on IP address. There's a small hamlet about 50 miles from where I live called Tunnel. I think a grand total of 50 people live there. If the AFF ads are any indication it would seem that 49 of them are extremely attractive women who are looking for a good time. It's my dream to move there one of these days.... ;)

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.

Finally, some relevant ads

[Jurily]

Too bad I use Adblock.

Awesome

[NoZart]

So the fake hot lesbians who want to hump me are now directly on my block? BRB, ringing on random doors holding a printout of some adult friend finder banner....

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

[digitalaudiorock]

Seriously...they're essentially putting your home address in the http headers. This can't possibly be legal can it??

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!

HTTPS ...

[Skapare]

... FTW. Let's see them munge the headers with that.

SSL

[Aladrin]

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

Re:SSL

[Lachlan Hunt]

SSL won't help guard against this at all. If you visit a site that embeds an advertisement, the ad provider still obtains your IP address, and they can still query participating ISPs for the postal code of the user at that address.

Re:SSL

[rjstanford]

That's very different than getting that information, "for free", with every request for an ad image. Adding the latency to query the ISP for the information before returning the ad would make the image load too slowly, and adding the API traffic would be pretty expensive in terms of open socket connections.

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

[dziban303]

I seem to have a big problem with telemarketers. A big problem, like 10-15 calls a day. I changed my phone number and relaxed in the week of silence. Then I had to update my Cox billing information, and they got the new number. Not even two hours later, the telemarketers started calling again.

My point is, your ISP has (probably) been selling you down the river since you signed up, as has pretty much everyone else you've given personal information to. Magazine subscriptions, any number of websites, your bank, utilities...nothing new here.

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.

Well, crap like that does not fly with me

[bleh-of-the-huns]

While I may or may not be able to block said targeted advertising, I can guaranty that I will explicitly boycott any companies that use such services like this to target me. I do the same thing with telemarketers and those people who leave door tags on my door. If I want something, I will go find it.

Easily blocked by techies?

[rainmayun]

This should be easily handled with a browser plugin.

For those of you saying "browse more with SSL", this is primarily going to benefit site owners with more targeted ads, who will know it doesn't work with SSL.

For those of you saying "use Adblock", that won't stop site owners from using this information for other purposes. Some sites will already have this information, particularly if you do e-commerce with them. But others may not. Do you really want midgetporn.com to know where you live?

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.

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.

Zip+4 uniquely identifies 1E+09 entities.

[jayegirl]

Does the use of Zip+4 strike anyone as a little odd? After all, it allows for 1E+09 entities, and the population of the US is only around 3E+08. Sounds like a serial number to me.

Re:Zip+4 uniquely identifies 1E+09 entities.

[Shag]

Well, Zip+4 identifies buildings, or groups of buildings... not people. Your ZIP+4 might change over the course of your life - maybe even several times.

My Zip+4 corresponds to the 4 houses on my driveway... but the post office sees ##A, ##B, ##C and ##D on my street and decides that these are clearly apartments in an apartment building. So sites that collect and distribute "public information" about me tend to start off by being completely wrong about my living arrangements.

That's stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA as an example of what it could be used for: "For instance, HBO could partner with an ISP to verify, at the network level, that a certain user subscribes to HBO, and so should be allowed to watch its programming for free on Hulu. Users might be annoyed that they can't use a username and password to watch the channel from a computer outside their homes, but content providers will appreciate the way this system can prevent users from sharing accounts."

It would be bullsh*t if they did that. I watch Hulu BECAUSE I can't afford to subscribe to HBO. I participate in the Hulu "ad tailoring" and don't mind the ads they play because, again, I CAN'T AFFORD to have a cable bill AND a high speed internet bill. I know a lot of people are in the same situation. If they did institute that I'd probably read a lot more, that's for sure.

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:But, you don't have privacy...

[Mr. Slippery]

but personally, and most of the world, would actually rather have things targeted at them with actual relevancy.

Most of modern advertising is an attempt to control your behavior -- it's applied psychology, a weak form of mind control designed to get you to buy stuff you do not need or want, to keep feeding the unsustainable society of consumption.

And you'd like it to be more targeted and effective? Fsck that.

But that isn't really the main point, the main point is you already never had any privacy when you decided to stay connected to society, live with it or leave society.

Uh, no. What you are saying makes no sense. Up until the late 20th century, for all of human history you had privacy as soon as you went home and closed the door, or even walked out into a field away from other people. Freedom from company, which was easily achieved, meant freedom from observation. But now we have machines to do the observation.

Your "live with it or leave" declaration is irrational. In order to make society livable and sustainable, we must construct it with respect for basic human needs. Privacy is one of them. Respect privacy or watch society collapse.

But the simple fact remains that if you live in the walls of society, you are expected to make sacrifices in freedoms and privacy in order to keep it stable.

No. Again, what you are saying makes no sense. A working society is a network whereby people expand their choices and thus have greater freedoms. And a respect for privacy is one of the fundamental requirement for a society to flourish.

I've got a FEEVA

[illumynite]

And the only PRESCRIPTION, is more COWBELL

Proxy

[Archwyrm]

If this becomes a problem, I'll just route all my traffic through an ssh proxy on my VPS. Let them tailor their ads to the datacenter in Dallas. Not that I will be seeing them with AdBlock on anyway..