I have heard all the dire warnings
about how corporations are gobbling up my personal information and
know far more about me than I would like. I suppose it's true. I will
sometimes go to the privacy settings for Facebook or Google or some
other place and set them to be more restrictive. But then within a
year or two they change it and I have to go back in and do it again,
some different way. A person gets tired. I don't read privacy
policies any more closely than I read user agreements when they
install software. Does anyone? I could disable cookies, but cookies
are actually very convenient in customizing my personal experience.
One reason I'm not upset enough to take
vigorous action is that the reason they are doing this (as far as we
know) is to more precisely target the advertising they give me to be
more relevant. Well, if I have to look at advertising, surely it's
better the more likely it is to be relevant. Studies show that people
are susceptible to various devious tricks and are being manipulated
by all advertising. But I figure that's my problem. (On those rare
occasions I watch TV, I deliberately get up and do something else
when the ads come on). I don't know how anyone could legislate the
removal of subtle manipulation in advertising. Perhaps I should be
upset because this same data could be used for more intrusive
purposes if it got into the wrong hands. I guess I'm just not in
practice taking that possibility all that seriously.
Four years ago I experienced the
ultimate in targeted advertising. I was looking for a new small car,
focusing on the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit. I used Google search. As
a result, I started getting advertising related to cars, and it
continued after I had bought my Yaris. One picture showed me not just
a Yaris, and not just one of the same color (blue) -- it was a
picture of the actual car I had bought, which I could identify by the
background of the photo showing the lot where I had first seen it.
The advertising certainly was precisely targeted!
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