Behavioral Advertising

[MrGamm]

I will admit... This is rather a new concept to me. As in... I never actually thought that such a practice really existed, but here is the latest news release.

Google Public Policy Blog: Self-regulatory principles for behavioral advertising

Is anybody well versed enough to truly understand what exactly behavioral advertising is and how it is used to "increase the sale"?

I am almost certain this is why the advertisements inside facebook are so accurate and demeaning at the same time.

Doesn't this violate any of my rights as a human being? If it doesn't. No worries. I really don't think too many people would be bothered by it really. I am just asking because I don't really know.

And if it doesn't violate any of my rights as a human being. How does it effect a small businesses ability to do business? I mean does buying into the advertising practice give you greater control over who you target or does it just give bigger business better knowledge and regulation over small business practices?


I thought it was against most search engines guidelines to target users and change the content of your page based on how a user was referred to your website. Has this changed? Can I now cloak content and serve content to a user however I see fit?

[kgun]

1. What is dividing this from todays marketing model?
2. Should you supply this http://www.iab.net/media/file/ven-pr...s-07-01-09.pdf link?
3. Note that the site in your post and the link above are third party articles / stories and not offical Google policy.

[thefandango]

Big business is getting bigger. The net is owned by Google and socialising is owned by Facebook.

[Katt]

I personally hate the idea of behavioral advertising on the 'net, mostly because huge corporations will use it to track and catalog our every move, while small companies like mine will struggle to overcome the limitations it puts on us. I also hate that ANYBODY is tracking and classifying me based on my online habits. If I click a particular link and that move serves up a particular ad, fine. But if I come back a month later and you serve ads based on what I've done while away, BAD. That's where it's headed.

Another thing - how can you track your SERPS if they're different for everybody based on previous 'net usage and geo-location? That's why I frequently use Scroogle Scraper and compare it with my normal search results. This might surprise you!

[deepsand]

"Every thing old is new again."

The only thing "new" here is that an ancient concept is now being effectively employed in a (relatively) new medium.