A segment of Bill Hick’s 1993 comedy special “revelations”
With the current state of technology being as accessible and ingrained in everyday life as it is, it only makes sense for commercial corporations to attempt to exploit it in order make as much money as they can, after all, that’s their goal right?
Google hosts a service called AdSense. AdSense allows website publishers to include ads on their pages that have a distinct relationship to the content of the site. Money is awarded to the publisher based on how many clicks an ad receives. In theory the ads should receive a lot more traffic because they are related to the sites content, meaning they will be more likely to interest visitors. This method of advertising is fairly non invasive as it does not use your own personal information in order to tailor which ads you will be presented with but rather the information provided by the website’s publisher. AdSense can be beneficial to both users and creators as the ads may be helpful to users as leading to more clicks and income for creators.
Amazon.com uses a method that tracks what customers who purchased an item also purchased and suggests those products to consumers who are viewing the same item. This provides customers with useful recommendations for items they may genuinely be interested in but were previously unaware of as well as generating further sales for Amazon. This may also lead to a rabbit-hole-like effect where customers are recommended more and more products as they continue to purchase them.
Chris Anderson explains an effect born through the use of these recommendations known as The Long Tail. With the example of Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void‘s resurgence in popularity after over a decade of being relatively unknown. This was due to the release of Joe Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and subsequent recommendations of Touching the Void by Amazon. This shows that it is possible to be profitable by selling small amounts of seemingly obscure items as opposed to the “hit culture” of selling large quantities of extremely popular items in bursts.
However some methods of internet marketing are drawing a fine line between advertising and invasion of privacy. Facebook for example, collects and stores information related to what you have searched for, viewed and even discussed privately with other users. They use this information to go a step further from the AdSense model and target their ads specifically to the users behavior rather than just in relation to the websites content. This poses many concerns regarding information security and privacy, as what is essentially a unique profile is created for you with the use of stored personal information. This is known as behavioral targeting.
Google = Illuminati Confirmed
Personally I am not concerned with this information being stored as I am currently unaffected by it. However, who knows what the future holds for my precious information. It may one day be used to create an exact robotic replica of myself, crushing my anemic body swiftly and beyond recognition in order to assume my role in society with my friends and family none the wiser. Until then, AdBlock will suffice.