Retargeting Ads Stalk You For Weeks After You Shop

eldavojohn writes "The New York Times is reporting on a new kind of web ad that takes products you were looking at purchasing on one site and continually advertising them in front of you at subsequent sites. After looking at shoes at Zappos, a mother in Montreal noticed the shoes followed her: 'For days or weeks, every site I went to seemed to be showing me ads for those shoes. It is a pretty clever marketing tool. But it's a little creepy, especially if you don't know what's going on.' The spreading ploy is called 'retargeting ads' and really are just a good demonstration of how an old technology (all they use are leftover browser cookies) are truly invasive and privacy violating. Opponents are clamoring for government regulation to protect the consumer and one writer mentioned a consumer 'do not track' list — adding that retailers really show little fear of turning off customers with their invasion."

Comments

It seems a bit wrong-headed

[mutube]

So... You look at something, decide you *don't* want to buy it... and then they continue to advertise it to you in case what? You change your mind?

????

Profit

Re:It seems a bit wrong-headed

[sammy baby]

Oh man, the "Tiny wireless camera!!!" ads? I remember them from the late 90s. I think that they were just flat out ubiquitous, as opposed to following specific people around.

The worst part of those ads was the pervyness. The ads would blare "for security," but they all ran with pictures of half-dressed women.

creepy. but

[Geoffrey.landis]

I agree it's creepy, but Opponents are clamoring for government regulation to protect the consumer bothers me a bit. Really, I'm not at all sure that the government should be regulating in the internet at this picky level of detail.

Re:creepy. but

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not at all sure that the government should be regulating in the internet at this picky level of detail.

Consumers have no technical way to protect themselves. Block cookies and there are a thousand other ways to track them (web bugs, LSO cookies, etc. etc.). Block those and the vendors will find another solution.

The only solution is legal: Give consumers legal authority to stop vendors from tracking them, and penalties if that's violated.

We've all been trained to memorize the meme that government regulation is bad. Fine if you want to believe it, and sometimes the meme is true, but sometimes, bad or not, the regulation is worse than the alternative.

Re:creepy. but

[Errol backfiring]

I'm not at all sure that the government should be regulating in the internet at this picky level of detail.

I think people should not be haunted with ads by any technique. So this is not nitpicking, it is just regulation of how much privacy invading is allowed. And in my opinion this kind of automated man-hunt should be forbidden.

Re:Anti-advertising...

[wagadog]

and, yet, they've gotten your attention sufficiently to get you to repeat their name! No such thing as bad publicity!

And...dare I say it to a chiark? You are like putty in their hands. ssh into their site next time. :)

Re:Silly

[BobMcD]

If I just bought something, why would they think I'm going to buy it again? If it was a perishable product or one that is periodically used up, that's understandable, but good shoes generally last at least a year or so.

I prefer it, actually, to the approach used by television. There must not be a lot of brand loyalty in feminine hygiene products, but I'm fairly certain that they're wasting their ad dollars trying to woo me.

Ads for things I have bought is one step closer to ads for things I might actually buy, and is a step away from ads that I'd rather not even think about.

Therefore - good thing.

Besides, if you've already been to the site and made your decision, what's the harm, exactly?

Annoying marketing.

[MaWeiTao]

What I find exceedingly obnoxious is when I do purchase something and for weeks afterwards I'll get promotions for similar things, if not the same exact altogether.

I'm curious to know how effective this sort of thing actually is. All those people in the marketing department and consultants will desperately insist it works. But given my own experiences and observations it just creates information overload and the vast majority of people end up ignoring most of what they say. Unfortunately, the very people who do marketing are the ones also supplying the statistics on whether it has been effective or not. They're not going to furnish information that renders them inessential. So they only disclose what seems to work and make some rather absurd suppositions.

There's no such thing as too much advertising to these guys. Expect things to get even more invasive.

Re: Not that scary

[TheGratefulNet]

Not all marketers are deceptive, unethical people, just like you can't generalize any profession.

in my 30 years in the software field, I never once met a sales/marketing guy you could trust. "shake hands and you have to count your fingers" is the usual sentiment felt after dealing with such people.

if you could 'do' you would have. because you can't, you 'sell'. we know that; and yes, we do judge you for it; and not in a good way, either.

Re:Anti-advertising...

[ScrewMaster]

Interesting to see how intrusive advertisements actually accomplish the exact opposite: a certain hatred against the company behind it...

I have similar experiences - some types of advertisement are just too annoying, and I will make an effort never to buy anything from that company ever again. (And I have a longer memory than the internet itself).

It all makes me wonder what kind of people can be digitally bullied into buying something online.

The problem is one of metrics. Generally it's not the actual advertiser that has set up a system to generate and serve ads, they just pay another company for the service. So there's a disconnect between the people receiving (and being irritated by) the advertisements, and the company actually providing the goods and services. Ideally, the vendor would check up on what their flunkies are doing: maybe then they'd say, "Hey, enough of that, you're pissing off potential customers!" But odds are the ad company just returns some simple stats on number of ads served and where, and that vendor company just says, 'Good job." Personally, I think they've been sold a bill of goods: this might work in the short term but eventually people will either a. block the things or b. simply tune them out. That's what I do anyways, on both counts.

People who buy this kind of advertising need to be more aware of the effect it is having on customers (and potential customers.) The "no such thing as bad publicity" mantra may be true in some circles, but when it comes to online advertising it's a big negative, since most people are predisposed to dislike such ads anyway. You have to strike a balance when it comes to advertising. Television, by and large, has gone overboard: they're so damn commercial-laden now that I'd rather torrent commercial-free episodes of my favorite shows even though I'm paying AT&T for the privilege (yeah, I can commercial-skip with the DVR, but I like to just hit "play" and forget about it, plus which their WinCE-based DVR software is decidedly flaky.) I also find that it's a lot easier to become immersed in the storyline if I'm not dealing with constant interruptions.

A lot of cable channels are acting like this is still old-time broadcast television, where the user had no ability to record or skip anything, and at best could just turn down the volume on a commercial. Those days are gone: I pay to watch these shows, and I really couldn't care less about someone's ad revenue especially when it ruins the experience for me. When it comes to the Web, I'll tolerate ads (even though I will never, as a matter of principle, buy anything from one of them) until they start to really get on my nerves. Then my eyeballs will disappear off your radar just like that.

Google appears to understand this balance and has been phenomenally successful because of it: their ads are simple and unobtrusive, and their service is worth the trade-off. Push it too far, however, and people will seek out ways to avoid viewing them: the tools are there. This user-tracking business sounds like one of those times, if the reaction of people here on Slashdot is any indication.

Re: Not that scary

[ScrewMaster]

salesman, marketeers and politicians.

Oddly similar personality types, when you get right down to it. The term "sociopath" is most commonly applied.