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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."
"A voter who has indicated an interest in a candidate and then views a video on YouTube is likely to see a 15- or 30-second campaign ad, called a pre-roll, pop up. A box will appear after 5 seconds asking if the person wants to continue viewing the ad. Campaigns only pay for ads the viewer watches through to completion."
I think I've found a way to hurt Romney financially.
Sweet.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Unfortunately, it feels like the vast majority of voters are stuck in their childhood-naivety in believing politics is just unimportant and they should just vote for whoever they "like" the most, turning the presidency into a high-school level popularity contest. At this point, why not just give both candidates an FB page and decide who becomes the next president by whoever has the most likes? This is the type of response massive advertising will bring.
Why can't we make this type of advertising illegal for public offices. Perhaps instead, a consolidated web-based resource should be constructed where each candidate (including individuals running separately from any political party affiliation, and without bias towards those affiliations) is given the same space to identify themselves and their beliefs, and which consolidates resources on the person, their activities within government (both positive and negative), and any interviews/debate type questions they've answered. Also, perhaps some kind of Q&A type service (like a reddit AMA, except less chaotic), so that people can get more information on the stances of the candidates. I envision something sort-of like the "we the people" petition system except much more candid and less worthless, since it entails asking questions to a candidate at large and having popular questions answered sincerely (rather than deferring to media shills and mouth-taped panelists being the only ones that get to ask questions outside of showing up at a town hall and hoping you get called on to ask a question). Most importantly, these things would be immortalized, really showing which candidates hold true to their responses, giving us an ability to objectively score winning candidates on their performance going forward.
Then, armed with something like that, where we can actually read up on all the candidates and find ones we align ourselves most with (and more importantly, who appear to be most beneficial to our country), we then head to the court houses to vote. Not this ass-backwards "see a name on TV, go vote for them because he said something you agree with in the commercial" nonsense. Terrible, the current system is.
>>>Obama is anti-war, he is getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan as gracefully as possible.
"If our troops are not out of Iraq and Afghanistan by the time I take office, I will bring them home my first year. You can bank on it!" - Candidate Obama. So that would be the end of 2009.
Iraq actually ended two years after the promised date, and only because of a treaty that Dubya Bush had already signed. Meanwhile Obama tried to negotiate an extension to the war to keep troops over there, but the Iraq government said "get the soldiers out". So Obama had to leave against his will. (And even in the present time there are still ~100,000 armed "advisors" occupying Iraq.)
- And of course Afghanistan did not end in 2009.
PLUS the man went and involved us in NEW wars (Yemen, Libya, and drone attacks on Pakistan). I fully-expect he'll start bombing Iran after he win reelection. He is not anti-war. Watch his ACTIONS and his broken promises, not his current rhetoric.
>>>Obama is pro bill-of-rights.
Is that why he signed the NDAA after saying he would veto it? Is that why he asked Congress to add the two sentences taking-away a right to trial for suspected terrorists? Is that why he signed the pro-censorship ACTA treaty? Is that why he expanded the power of the TSA to grope our bodies (or nude bodyscan us) from airports to train terminals to bus depots to along interstate highways to post office, malls, and just this past weekend, a music festival in Detroit? Is that why he remains silent while elderly are strip-searched, urine/colostomy bags are spilled, women's breasts are groped, and other nursing mom are forced to stand in glass jails?
He does not care about our rights.
>>>Obama is anti deficit spending.
Then how come his new budget submitted to Congress increased from 1.2 trillion to 1.6 trillion? ALSO stop blaming the republicans. The Democrats had full control of the White House, the House, and the Senate. If Obama really & truly wanted to eliminate the deficit, he and his Democrat Congress would have done it in 2009 or 10.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Do not underestimate the power of this kind of software. I've seen it in action and the data collection capabilities are astonishing. For example, say you get an email from some advertiser... and you even have your mail viewer set to not download images. If you open that email AT ALL, it's all HTML code. You just opened a page on their site custom designed for you. They know when they sent you the email, when you received it, when you opened it, what you looked at in it... if you followed any of the links in it. They likely have agreements with many of the sites you visit and based on your IP address and other unique identifiers know where you've been irrelevant of if you "logged in" or not. Even if you were in "private mode" in firefox, they can see it all. I even tested it on myself with no-script, adblock, etc... and when I checked what it logged it was amazing.
Everything you do on most websites is logged, tracked, tied to you... or at least some unique info about you. They may not know who you are, but they don't care... they just need to know what you've looked at in the past, so they can show you things that their studies have shown you're not likely to pass up. Even if you don't fall for it, that's a data point that they'll use to serve up even more stuff to you later.
Frontline's eight year old documentary called The Persuaders (specifically chapter 5, though it's all quite interesting) showed the pollsters going door to door, but before knocking they got all your data from Axciom or Lexis so they could tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear. Disingenuous? Nahh, it's just politics.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...