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Transparent behavorial targeting

Written on
Mar 24, 2009 
Author
Edward Barrera  |
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Transparent behavorial targeting

target1.jpgADOTAS — How far will the growing discontent about online privacy go?

At least one man, Joseph Turow, a marketing professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania, wants complete transparency.

He wants to put an icon on each ad that when clicked allows users to see what has been collected. Clicking the icon, you will get a privacy dashboard that will let you understand exactly what information was used to choose that ad. And you can edit the information or opt out of having any targeting done at all.

According to Turow, you will see what part of it was customized — the product, the price, the image and so on. You will also see the data used — your surfing habits, outside data vendors, inferences from your I.P. address, etc. You can click to learn more specifics about exactly where the data came from and to delete or modify the information used about you.

“When people begin to smell a rat with regard to their reputation or they feel they are being discriminated against, they will use it,” he said to the Times. “When companies realize you have the ability to see what they are doing, they treat you better.”

I believe in complete transparency, but I also wonder what’s the worst that can happen to me if a website (and I’m not talking about the bad actors out there) uses the information they are now able to collect related to my surfing habits.

– Express your opinion, comment below.





Reader Comments.

Brilliant, though I would suggest a two-staged approach. Some basic information could be passed without having to double check it each and every time. More guarded information would raise a flag and ask for user permission.

Striking a balance between nothing and everything being filtered would help avoid having the solution just raise further problems.

Posted by MajorWebUser | 12:52 pm on March 20, 2009.

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