Digital advertising has changed the ad landscape. As an advertiser, I can not only target you based on past behavior, but I can know when you are going to make a purchase using AI. Advertisers know some pretty creepy things about you and technology makes it all possible. To do this, they need the currency of the future: your personal data. This data is a goldmine and ad tech companies will do just about anything to get it.
Your Browser
Noting to see here, right? I mean, it’s just your browser. A browser can’t reveal much about you, right? Oh boy. I’m sorry to tell you, but a browser knows your software, hardware, your battery level if you’re on a power supply, your download speed, social media sites where you’re logged in, and more. Don’t believe me? Click here to see for yourself and be really creeped out. So, how is this related to advertising? Well, if you’re not reading this article on an app, I’m guessing you’re reading it on Google Chrome. You know, Google? The same Google that’s the largest advertiser in the world. They also know your cookies, browsing history, when you log on, when you log off, and probably just about everything that goes into your Gmail account. I hope you’re not ready to go full tin-foil-hat mode yet. We’re just getting started.
Ad Retargeting
You know when you look at a pair of socks online and the entire internet tries to sell you back that same pair of socks you were just looking at? Well, that’s called retargeting. It’s pretty simple, really. Let’s say you visit my website and I’m running one of these campaigns. I’ve got a piece of code on my site that identifies you as a user of an advertising network that I pay to track you. Now, for the next 90 days, or however long I set the ad contract when you leave and visit a website that is affiliated with my network, you will see my ads.
Even though the simplest form of retargeting involves you visiting my site, there are other ways to do this. You can do this through a related search. Let’s say you are searching for a muzzle for your dog because you can’t stop him from barking. I could serve you an ad from my online dog training course in an ad targeting network to try and stop you from doing something like putting a muzzle on your dog. Yay! Now you bought my awesome services, you bonded with your dog, and you have a better understanding of why he was barking so much in the first place. My creepy ad just made the world a better place. There’s nothing wrong with these ads, right?
Then there’s predictive targeting. What is that? Well, it’s basically AI trying to figure out what you are going to buy in the future based on past behavior. Predictive targeting takes all of your past browsing behavior and uses AI to predict what you are going to be shopping for in the future. Let’s go back to the socks example. A simple way to explain this is if you’ve been shopping for a lot of socks, maybe your next purchase will be shoes. Or maybe some toenail clippers. I’ll admit, so far, still not super creepy. Hang on, it gets worse.
Email can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, come on, it’s email. It’s been around forever. In the internet timeline, it’s a dinosaur. I hate to break it to you, everything you do and interact with on an email is tracked. I can track if you skimmed or read my email, what parts of it you liked and clicked on, how many times you opened it, and I can even infer if you forwarded it to someone. From there, well, who knows. I could do some follow-up targeted emails based on your interests.
Let’s say I was trying to really narrow down niches within my customer base. Back to the sock example, let’s say I sell socks and shoes. If I really wanted to understand my customers’ interests, I could send them a simple, general email and see what they click on. Let’s say they click on shoes and nothing else. Wow! I’ve just identified them as a potential shoe buyer. Cool. I can put them in a “shoe” target email. They’ll get that email 24 hours later. That shoe email will have running shoes, hiking shoes, and walking shoes. The shoe email goes out, they click running shoes, boom! I’ve got a runner. Wow, let’s add them to the running list, so every time I have a promo on running shoes or publish a blog about running tips, they get the email. Depending on how active you are on social media, and how tied in and easy my ad tech platform can find your email, I might be able to find you there. And an advertiser can scrape that info pretty easily.
Geofencing
So you know how all of your apps want to know your location? Well, from an advertising perspective, this data is really valuable information. An advertiser can set up a “fence” based on your GPS coordinates. Let’s say I’m trying to sell video game accessories. I could choose to target everyone that visits any GameStop store in the country.
An advertiser can get pretty specific. With hyperlocal Geofencing, I could target a specific aisle. Let’s say for instance I just wanted to target everyone that passed by or visited the video game section in a larger department store. Yep, that’s an option.
Your Smart Speaker
In July of 2019, it came out in The Guardian, that Apple was paying contractors to listen to Siri conversations to “help Siri and dictation…understand you better and recognize what you say”[1]. Of course, Apple denied using this information for any nefarious purposes. But we should all trust a company that has a higher value than the GDP of Brazil, Australia, or Canada, right? While we’re on this train of thought, how about Alexa? Well, in May of 2019, the Washington Post[2] reported how Alexa records everything after it hears its name. Yep. Everything you say. Everything you do. Every noise that it can pick up. Neat. There’s also been a bunch of warrants to obtain the recorded data.[3]
Social Media
Let’s not get into the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I’m guessing you know about that already. Let’s just start with the easy stuff. The first thing to understand is why social media exists in the first place, besides cat pictures. Okay, I’ll give, it also exists so you can argue with your aunt on who she is voting for. Actually, those are just residuals for the real reason that social media exists: data. Yep, as I said before, your data is super valuable. Most people just willingly give it up. They give their name, location, interests, and tons of other information when they first fill out their profile. But it goes deeper. You can be targeted by the pages you like. Did you happen to like a few posts about shoes? Cool, you’re lumped in my sock shoe store thing. Did you happen to share a few posts about grilling out? Congratulations, you’re a candidate for A1 Steak Sauce. Is your feed manipulated based on what you do? Well, let’s just say they call that “how the algorithm works.” Did you have the geolocation feature turned on? Cool. Now I know that you just grabbed a pizza, maybe I can serve you an ad for ice cream.
The Super Creepy
So let’s get to the speculative. Well, sort of speculative. I’m sure you know something about the TikTok ban but maybe you don’t know why it was banned. Well, not banned. Well…sort of banned? Anyway, one of the things that TikTok does is access the iOS clipboard. Yep, Apple. You know, the company worth $2 Trillion that’s famous for their amazing security. The very same Apple. What does this mean? Have you ever cut/pasted information on your phone, maybe a password? Well, that goes to a clipboard. They’re not the only one that does this. CBS News, Accuweather, well, a bunch of others are or have been doing this too.[4] Not only that, TikTok’s own privacy policy says that they collect your mobile carrier, IP address, “unique identifiers”, and keystroke patterns.[5] So other apps are doing this, but the reason that TikTok is banned is because it’s Chinese? From what I can gather, yes.
So let’s get to the big question. You know how you had that conversation with your friend, whether via text, or on the phone, or even in person and you mentioned something? For the purposes of this exercise, let’s say it was Nike. You then pick up your phone, check a social media network and immediately see a Nike ad. You then call or text your friend frantically and say something like “OMG, you know how we were just talking about this, check it out”. So, is Facebook using your microphone and camera to spy on you, even when you’re not using the app? Well, they’ve repeatedly denied these allegations and try really hard to come up with explanations on why this happens. So are they? Good question.
Wrapping Up
Regardless of if you are now masterfully creating a pattern for a new tin-foil hat or not, creepy ads are here to stay. As a society, I don’t really see how we can go back. The only way they would go away is if they didn’t work. Maybe they would go away if we found out that many of the advertisers were committing fraud. Oh wait, we already did that. In 2019, Facebook paid $40 million because they lied about their video stats, [6] Google ran ads with a bunch of fraudulent traffic[7], oh, and about all of those fake clicks…[8] Maybe we’ll never learn.
[1] Hern, A. Apple Contractors ‘Regularly Hear Confidential Details’ on Siri Recordings, Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings
[2] Fowler, G. Alexa Has Been Eavesdropping on You This Whole Time, Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/06/alexa-has-been-eavesdropping-you-this-whole-time/
[3] Epstein, K. Police Think Amazon’s Alexa May Have Information on a Fatal Stabbing Case, Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/02/police-think-amazons-alexa-may-have-information-fatal-stabbing-case/
[4] Jones, T. It’s Not Just TikTok Spying on Your iOS Clipboard, Retrieved from: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/07/ios-clipboard-apps-spy-tiktok/
[5] Mahadevan, T. TikTok Responds After Reddit CEO Calls it Fundamentally Parasitic, Retrieved from: complex.com/pop-culture/2020/02/reddit-ceo-calls-tiktok-fundamentally-parasitic
[6] Gardner, E. Facebook to Pay $40M Under Proposed Settlement in Video Metrics Suit, Retrieved from: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/facebook-pay-40-million-under-proposed-settlement-video-metrics-suit-1245807
[7] Haggin, P. Google to Refund Advertisers After Suit Over Fraud Scheme, Retrieved from: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-refund-advertisers-after-suit-over-fraud-scheme-11558113251
[8] Fake Clicks on Online Ads Costing Companies Tens of Billions a Year, Retrieved from: https://www.ft.com/content/8f0d4b98-21c7-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b