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Andy Hayes
Social Impact of TechnologySection 70Apri l 2014
TECHNOLOGYMAKES US A MARKETING TOOL,
DEMOGRAPHIC, AND TARGET
The Paradigm of “Free”
The Value of Your Information
You as a:• Marketing Tool• Demographic• Target
Astroturfing
Your ISP too?
Conclusions
Sources
TOPICS
On the internet, if you’re not the paying customer, you are the product.
Users have come to expect web-based content and services to be provided for free.
Since the proliferation of the internet and the resulting dot-com boom, free access to search engines, webmail, and social networking have been provided for free.
More recently, mobile apps and cloud storage have off ered free basic off erings, with modest cost for heavier/extended use.
It is the need to monetize these services, given to the end user for free, that drives companies to collect, analyze, and sell information from users.
This information-based market makes every internet user a marketing tool, a demographic, and a target.
THE PARADIGM OF “FREE”
How do advertisers know what you like? Every Facebook post, Google search, and iPhone app of
yours tells them for you.
Every product has a target market – the people most likely to buy based on their demographics and interests.
Advertising campaigns can be extremely expensive. Online advertisements are paid by number of clicks and views. Targeting the exposure of these ads ensures that every click or view is coming from someone most likely to buy.
Nearly every advertisement you see online is tailored to you because of your demographic. Manufacturers have a profi le of their ideal customer. Advertisers have a profi le of you, based on your information. When you see advertisements, it’s because these two profi les have aligned for the advertised product and you.
THE VALUE OF YOUR INFORMATION
Market ing Tool• The informat ion that you g ive out to any webs i te, knowingly or not , is used to market to you more eff ect ively. This informat ion can a lso be extrapolated to others who fi t your demographics . You’re help ing marketers se l l to you and your f r iends.
Demographic• Whi le we a l l have personal demographics , every p iece of technology you own, every webs i te you v is i t , and every b logger ’s opin ion you adopt puts you in a demographic . The more you browse, the more boxes you t ick. 18-24 years o ld, OSX user , Reddit member , Facebook addict wi th lots of Photoshop quest ions: Google knows what I ’m up to , and they know exact ly how to market to me.
Target• You are a target market . A lways have been, even i f you ex isted before the web. That shouldn’t be news to you, but what ’s new is the sheer number of people, organizat ions, and companies who have a vested interest in gett ing your at tent ion. The more technology embedded in your l i festy le , the more avenues there are to market to you.
• As wi l l be touched on in the Astroturfi ng and ISP sect ions, there’s the opportunity for those t racking you on the web to commit egregious breaches of your pr ivacy, making you a target of hackers and overzealous law enforcement . Whether the NSA gets your informat ion f rom Facebook i l l ic i t ly , or your Internet prov ider hands over your fi les to the OPP without a warrant , your r ights are reduced when your informat ion is co l lected.
YOU AS A…
Google isn’t a search engine anymore, they’re an advertising company. Their public-facing
products serve to collect information to market with or sell.
Google products are ubiquitous on the web. They’re often the best or most popular of their kind: Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Drive, Docs, Android OS, and the Play Store.
Google tracks a user’s activity across their various services on the web. Your Gmail messages are tied to your searches, recently watched YouTube videos, and (through your Android device and Maps) your phone number and location.
The aggregated information you provide gives Google an extremely accurate picture with which to advertise to you.
You took your videos off YouTube, migrated your email, and closed your G+ account. Google is still
tracking you. Here’s how.
Google Analytics is a paid Google product, targeted at website owners.
Analytics can be added to any website you own, including those based around a CMS such as Squarespace or Wordpress.org.
Analytics uses tracking cookies to follow a user around the web after they visit a website. The website’s owner can see anonymized information about visitors including: time spent on website, repeat visits, pages viewed, advertisements clicked, links followed, device, browser, and referring Google searches.
PS, Google stil l reads every email you send to a Gmail user.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics report showing visitors’ web activity.
News at Eleven says Facebook is a privacy threat, and they’re more right than they know – The largest threat is not on Facebook, it is
Facebook.
Facebook’s pr imary col lect ion of data comes from what we’re intending to share with our fr iends – fu l l name, emai l , phone number, address, and of course what we l ike.
Facebook’s col lect ion does not end on their website or app. Every v is i t adds a tracking cookie to your computer that catalogues your act iv ity on the web and reports i t to Facebook. This cookie never expires, not even i f you log out – i t must be manual ly deleted.
Insta l l ing the Facebook app on your mobi le device a l lows Facebook ful l access to your text messages and contacts . Their new Messenger app can place cal ls direct ly from the app – keeping an eye on al l your socia l interact ions.
“Login with Facebook” feature a l lows Facebook to not only see other s ites you’re v is i t ing ( they can anyway), but see exact ly what you’re doing on any s ite they s ign you into.
Facebook realized that savvy browsers pay no attention to ads, but let their guard down for posts. So they started selling posts as ads.
Any given post from a page only reaches ~10% of subscribers. Page owners must pay to promote further.
Facebook gives page owners the option to promote based on demographics and interests. The targeting metrics will astound you – nearly every piece of data that Facebook mines can be put to use.
MARKETING WITH FACEBOOK
Targeting an ad for a Wedding planner looking for clients. 6.4 million active users in Ontario, narrowed to a target market of 56,000 – less than 1 in 100.
On the Internet, nobody can see who signs your paycheque.
Astroturfi ng is when a paid representative posts online in support of their company or organization under the guise of an unaffi liated individual posting their opinion.
Astroturfers are common on blogging platforms such as Tumblr, Wordpress, and Twitter. They may comment on Disqus threads, post on Reddit, or even edit Wikipedia articles about their companies (all more commonly than you may think).
Etymology: The term was coined to describe a fake grassroots movement. Astroturfi ng is often political in nature: PACs, religious groups, and the US Military (Operation Earnest Voice) are known for using it.
ASTROTURFING
What happens when the Pres ident of Rwanda’s PR rep forgets to change
accounts:
Reddi t commenters on an unusua l ly obv ious sh i l l post f rom McDonald’s ,
upvoted (ana logous to FB “ l ikes”) by bots before be ing downvoted by the communi ty.
ASTROTURFING
When the service is free, you’re the product. When the service is paid…well, you’re still the product.
Bell Canada rol led out a program in mid-November 2013 that tracks customers’ television, web browsing, cal l ing, and cel lular usage. In a press statement, it was explained that this data was used specifi cally for targeted advertising to customers, as well as sale to third party companies. Al l exist ing and new customers are enrolled, unless an opt-out request is given.
Bell ’s col lected information can be cross-referenced with the customer’s account information to provide similarly comprehensive profi les for marketing as giants Facebook and Google do.
“The scope of Bell ’s intended personal data usage is remarkable…For law enforcement, Bell is eff ectively off ering one of the most detailed profi ling services in Canada, which the company can disclose without a court order as part of an investigation under Canadian privacy law” – Michael Geist, a technology law expert.
NB: Rogers Communications maintains a similar program, though customers are opted out by default. I ’ve found no evidence of data col lection/aggregation by Telus in my research.
YOUR ISP TOO?
It’s simple: if you’re a web user, it’s hard not to lose a little privacy .
In researching this project, I was astounded by the depth and breadth of information collected by most major tech companies. It’s unsurprising that the NSA chose to precipitate leaks from them, rather than directly collecting citizen data.
Focusing on Facebook and Google was a choice to give two prime examples of companies who aggregate huge amounts of user data. They are by no means exclusive. Apple, for example, collects through their devices heavily.
Skepticism on the web is necessary. Advertisements are no longer on the banners and borders – they’re the video you’re watching or the blog post you’re reading. And it’s no accident that you found them.
There is a need for greater public awareness, and greater industry regulation. The internet is maturing faster than social constructs and policy can be formed to reign it in.
CONCLUSIONS
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