The effect on users
More intrusive tracking comes from what is known in the business as trace files “of others.” They work as follows: the first time a user visits a site, it installs a trace file, which assigns the computer a unique identification number. Then when the user visits another site associated with tracking the same company, can take note of where that user was and where it is now. Thus, over time, the company can build a more complete profile.
One such ecosystem is the network of Yahoo Inc. ads which gets payments by placing targeted ads to specific users on their websites. The network of Yahoo Cate knows a lot about Reid, who has just graduated from high school. You know it’s a woman between 13 and 18 years who are interested in weight loss issues. Reid was able to confirm that when a reporter showed her a little known feature in the Yahoo site, the Interest Ad Manager, which displays some of the information that Yahoo has collected on it.
Yahoo information on Reid, who at that time was 17, hit home: the girl was concerned that possibly was overweight and often has done research about diets.
Each time you hit the Internet, says, you see signs of weight loss. “I’m self conscious about my weight,” says Reid, whose father asked not to reveal the city where he resides. “I try not to think about it … but the ads make me think about it.”
Yahoo spokeswoman, Amber Allman, says the company runs no ads consciously weight loss less than 18 years, although it does with adults.
“It is likely that this client has received a notice not specifically targeted,” says Allman. Reid may also have seen advertisements aimed at her by other tracking companies.
The monitoring of consumers is the foundation of economic online advertising revenues of U.S. $ 23,000 million in advertising expenditures last year. Tracking activity has soared. Researchers in the laboratories of AT & T Labs and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute last year found tracking technology in 80% of 1,000 popular sites, versus 40% in these sites in 2005.
WSJ found trace files that gather financial and health data. In the online dictionary Merriam-Webster.com, owned by Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a trace file Healthline Networks Inc., an ad network, scan the page the user is viewing and provides ads related to what you see there . So for example, a person who is looking for words related to depression Healthline might see ads about treatments for depression on this page and subsequent pages.
Healthline says that does not allow advertisers to follow online to users who have been sensitive issues like AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, eating disorders and impotence. The company allows advertisers to keep people with bipolar disorder and anxiety, overactive bladder, according to its marketing materials.
The ads targeting can become too personal. Last year, Julia Preston, an education software designer for 32 years in Austin, Texas, sought online information on uterine disorders. Soon he began to notice ads fertility sites he visited. Now he knows that he has no problem, but still receive the same ads.
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