My Place in the Crowd

Hot on the heels of the launch of Cuil and its no data collection policy, Yahoo announced recently that it would allow users to opt-out of targeted advertising on its own websites.

The new policy was announced in response to a letter sent by four members of the House of Representatives to 33 Internet and telecommunications companies. The first question of the letter was, “Has your company at any time tailored, or facilitated the tailoring of, Internet advertising based on consumers’ Internet search, surfing, or other use?” Ha!

In all fairness, I’m glad our elected officials are asking even simple questions. I just hope that they won’t be satisfied with overly simple responses. As many of the commenters to the Bits blog post pointed out, the issue is not so much whether the user is forced to view targeted ads, but what kind of data collection is done in order to send these users targeted ads. Chris Hoofnagle notes,

The problem with opt-out rights in the online advertising context is that it results in a worst case scenario for consumers: the opt out typically only applies to receiving targeted advertising, so the company still tracks the consumer’s behavior, but the consumer doesn’t enjoy the benefit of targeted ads.

This form of opt-out reflects a 20th century conception of privacy–privacy means not being contacted. In the 21st Century, we need to understand more subtle problems, such as the privacy risks from online advertisers mere collection and use of data.

Exactly. This is not about being put on the Internet equivalent of the “Do Not Call” registry. Does Yahoo think I would be okay with having data collected about me, as long as I never see the evidence they’re doing it?

P.S. Then again, there are certainly users like Commenter #8, whose vanity is hurt that Yahoo is sending her ads about reducing wrinkles. But deep down, even she seems to realize only her “sense” of privacy is being restored, not her privacy itself.

Now that ads are ’specially targeted to each one of us individually, how do you feel about the ads that are finding you?

Here’s Microsoft’s take on the situation. Not exactly news, but I just found it here.

Here are some snippets from the dialogue:

Consumer:
You’re not even listening are you?
We don’t talk anymore.
You do all the talking.
It’s not really a dialog.
You say you love me, but you’re not behaving like you love me.

Advertiser
They said you would love everything I did.

Consumer:
You’re not even listening are you?
If you knew me…

Advertiser:
Know you? Sweetheart, I know everything about you. You’re 28….to 34 You’re online interests include music, moves…and laser hair removal. You have a modest, but dependable disposable income.

Consumer:
I’m out of here.

The problem is: How are advertisers going to listen more closely to consumers given the privacy models we have today? How closely do you want them to be listening anyway?

Not very, according to this article.

But what if advertising simply became a service that helps you find what you need and discover what you want? Like a personal shopper or interior decorator. Or a financial adviser or psycho-pharmacologist. How far would you be willing to go in this relationship? And would it still be advertising?

Even as Google has become the most coveted place to work, to the extent that even their cafeteria gets media coverage, it’s also getting increasingly negative attention as a potentially sinister force. The New Yorker recently published an article with rather vague speculation at the way Google might take over the world. Now, we hear that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo so they can together fight Google. (Isn’t it funny that Microsoft is seeing another company as the big, bad world-dominator?) More and more, people are starting to wonder, “What exactly is Google up to?”

But given that we can’t read the minds of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, perhaps what we should be looking at is the conflict-of-interest inherent in Google’s business model. Google’s stated mission as a company is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. But are Google’s customers really the individuals searching for information, or are they the advertisers who actually increase Google’s revenues and stock value? To be fair, Google makes a respectable effort to separate advertising from “legitimate,” as in “non-jerry-rigged” search results. But after ten years, the Google search experience is pretty much the same as it’s always been. Has Google been working really hard on tools to help people find better information faster, or has it been working really hard on tools to help advertisers better target potential customers?

Google doesn’t have to be evil to be troubling. It may have started out with the purest of intentions, but it’s hampered itself with the conflict-of-interest at the heart of its operations. Law professor Tim Wu, as quoted in the New Yorker, said it straight, “I predict that Google will end up at war with itself.”

Number 8 on the list of most emailed articles in the NYT Tech section is currently A Photo Printer That Promises to Do Most Everything

Could this article possibly be legit? It reads like an ad. Also notice the conveniently placed Google ads at the bottom of the page.

Idea for a new list next to “Most Emailed Articles”, “Articles that Generate the Most Ad Revenue”…