Ads May Soon Stalk You on TV Like They Do on Your Facebook Feed (bloomberg.com)

Targeted ads that seem to follow us everywhere online may soon be doing the same on our TV. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission is poised to approve a new broadcast standard that will let broadcasters do something cable TV companies already do: harvest data about what you watch so advertisers can customize pitches. The prospect alarms privacy advocates, who say there are no rules setting boundaries for how broadcasters handle personal information. The FCC doesn't mention privacy in the 109-page proposed rule that is scheduled for a vote by commissioners Thursday. "If the new standard allows broadcasters to collect data in a way they haven't before, I think consumers should know about that," Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, said in an interview. "What privacy protections will apply to that data, and what security protections?" For broadcasters, Next Gen TV represents an advance into the digital world that for decades has been siphoning viewers away to the likes of Facebook, Netflix, Google's YouTube and Amazon's Prime video service.

Comments

Targeted ads

[fluffernutter]

I find these 'targeted ads' are either for something I've bought already, or for the exact same thing that I just looked at and didn't buy because I have already decided against it. In either case, I don't see how it is helping anyone.

Re:Targeted ads

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand how this stuff works. That's understandable because google, et al have been misleading the public about "personalized" advertising since day one. It is not about showing you stuff that you want to buy. Its about building profiles on everyone so as to figure out what messages they are most susceptible to. Then they show you ads that are tailored to best press your buttons in service of selling whatever crap they've been hired to sell.

Think of it like showing girls in bikinis in ads for beer, but super-specific like all the girls will resemble your previous girlfriends. Or selling diapers to new mothers where all the babies in the ads are the same sex and ethnicity as their baby and the background scenery matches their life and aspirations. Or, more nefarious, if they figure out you've got a relative who is an alcoholic, then they will show send you targeted discounts for alcohol since alcoholism is partially genetic so there is a higher chance of getting you hooked.

Keep in mind that in the ad business a response rate of just 5% is considered an unqualified success. So even if 95% of the time their ads go ignored, they are still absolutely killing it.