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Political Campaigns Mining Online Data To Target Voters
New submitter nicoles writes with this quote from an AP report:
"The Romney and Obama campaigns are spending heavily on television ads and other traditional tools to convey their messages. But strategists say the most important breakthrough this year is the campaigns' use of online data to raise money, share information and persuade supporters to vote. The practice, known as 'microtargeting,' has been a staple of product marketing. Now it's facing the greatest test of its political impact in the race for the White House. ... The Romney team spent nearly $1 million on digital consulting in April and Obama at least $300,000. ... Campaigns use microtargeting to identify potential supporters or donors using data gleaned from a range of sources, especially their Internet browsing history. A digital profile of each person is then created, allowing the campaigns to find them online and solicit them for money and support."
For those of us who wish to use social networking and other friendly but intrusive aspects of the web...If you haven't already, you better start scrubbing your visible online information. Reduce your online presence.
A good place to start viewing your publicly available information is http://www.pipl.com/
From there you can decide whether or not it is acceptable information and take the appropriate measures.
and you even have your mail viewer set to not download images
the setting is not "do not download images".. it's "do not download external references".
In thunderbird it is "Allow remote content. "
In outlook it is "Block images and other external content in HTML e-mail. "
What programmer would be stupid enough to stop images, but not other remote content? Not only is it a privacy issue, it is also a security issue.
So I have a hard time believing you really understand how email tracking works.