[privacy] Is this all about relevant Ads?

["Vincent" <toubiana () enst fr>]

Usually, we think that targeting ads are just adapted to the customer to
make them more attractive. But isn’t more about targeting costumers?
Remember that Google real clients are advertisers and not web users. Maybe
 the target is not the ad but the web user.

In « The digital Person », Daniel J. Solove mentions the case of a banker
in Maryland who checked its list of bank loans with the records of people
with cancer in order to cancel the loans of cancer sufferer. With
targeting ads, Google could offer the possibility to advertisers to
accurately select their customers. Therefore, a bank could soon directly
refuse to addresse its ads to cancer sufferers. Relying on all the
gathered information and the established user profiles, Google can easily
targets the wanted costumers.  Google already lets advertiser target web
users depending on their annual salaries, their ages and their ethnical
origins!

Since the only objective of targeted ads is to offer beetter user
experience, why not allow users to manage their own profiles? After all,
they know their own interests. But, if a web user discovers what its web
profile is and how it impacts the offers he receives, he will certainly
change its profile and behavior to receive better offers. That could ruin
Google added value: accurate profile of every user.

Maybe Google is becoming a search engine of costumers used by advertisers...

By the way, does anyone know if there is a regulation about retention of
information derived from search logs?

Best Regards,

Vincent

Demographic targeting: https://adwords.google.com/select/afc/site.html
The full message: http://squigglesr.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15



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