Sunday, October 21, 2007

A Vikings Dammit Doll...Just What I've Always Wanted!



Whether a person stumbles across a product on a site like eBay or if the product is directly targeted towards them through an online add, what will influence a person to actually buy that particular product? Is it a violation for cookies to track your every click without your permission...

Danna and Gandy wrote that data mining is "being seen as an essential business process." I don't think this it is necessarily ethically wrong for a company to use data mining, however, when I think about being tracked every time I look at a product, it kinda creeps me out.

It is true that online advertising can target a mass audience for a fraction of the cost of a television advertisement, but just as this blog points out, the supply of online advertising is so great, while the demand is relatively small. So, it makes sense that companies would try to target the people they believe to be the most interesting in their product.

Although I just said that it makes since, I might be contradicting myself when I say, I think in many cases, behavioral targeting can be more of an annoyance than anything else. Just because I was trying to find a text book for my China class on Amazon.com does not mean the I am interested in every book ever written on China. Yes, it is better to see ads for items that a person may have more interest in, but just because I bought a Vikings Jersey for my Boyfriend online does not mean that I want to see an add for countess Vikings memorabilia.

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