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Study: Women Less Likely To Be Shown Ads For High-paid Jobs On Google
An anonymous reader writes: A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has found that women seeking jobs are less likely to be shown ads on Google for high-paying jobs than men. The researchers created more than 17,000 fake profiles, which were shown roughly 600,000 ads on career-finding websites (abstract). All of the profiles shared the same browsing behavior. "One experiment showed that Google displayed adverts for a career coaching service for '$200k+' executive jobs 1,852 times to the male group and only 318 times to the female group." The article notes, "Google allows users to opt out of behavioral advertising and provides a system to see why users were shown ads and to customize their ad settings. But the study suggests that there is a transparency and overt discrimination issue in the wider advertising landscape."
A job can still pay well and otherwise be shitty. A person can make even more working on an oil rig in unbearable conditions, but most aren't going to rate the job satisfaction as highly as being a park ranger, being a vet tech, or any other number of jobs.
Plumbers make as much as they do precisely because few want to do it and it takes a reasonable bit of knowledge to do without mucking things up even worse.
The ads that Google shows you are based on your search terms most of the time.
Except when it's not. Which in this case clearly indicates there's a profile that's made up of more than just search terms.
The search terms were identical for all profiles, male or female. The authors of the paper admit in the abstract that they don't know who is responsible for the different results, but since the only difference was the "gender" setting it is clear that at some point in the chain (Google, advertisers, recruitment companies) there is a rule that says "favour males", just like there is a rule that says "favour females" for tampon adverts.
Right, confirming that it's not just search terms. So we agree, there's a profile involved, not just search terms.
The difference between those two examples, and why one is a problem, is hopefully obvious.
It's really not obvious. Are you suggesting that advertisers shouldn't be allowed to target ads? Are you suggesting freedom to engage in advertising should be modified by rules? You're implying that. On what basis do you justify telling corporations how to spend their ad money?