Targeted Ads

I am 24, single and on facebook. I have started noticing the adverts on that site have been using my details that I have put in to generate adverts aimed at me. For example, I get adverts with the tag line '24 and still single?' for a dating service.

I also have an account for my cat (i know, i know) whos age on it is 50 yeas old (as it needed one). He gets adverts about setting up a will.

I never really felt targeted adverts were bad, especially from a service like amazon, who send me adverts on books that I might like based on my previous trends (some of which i have bought), this I don't mind and is a nice use of this type of technology. But its quite upsetting when I get targeted adverts that use my details in a negative way, rather than posative, like amazon.

Anyone else had experiance of this?

I dont have Facebook but to be honest, for facebook cant be trust on some reason and I dont like Ads that target the person when the person isnt involed is WRONG!

for your cat ? - lol

thats nothing, I read they are using some technology where it scans your picture and if it finds something in your picture for example like sun glasses it will produce a image add that uses picture with guy with glasses on his head, just so to grab your attention, its sick :) leave facebook as quick as possible :D

It's pretty conerning that the advertisers are allowed access to information which anonymous users are not. How can they regulate this?

I don't use facebook, but in general targeted ads are a bit of a touchy subject --

on one side it weeds out the utterly pointless ads that your demographic would never in a million years be interested in, but on the other side it gives the eerie feeling that they're looking over your shoulder seeing what you're doing.

Basic demographics (such as country location, age range, single/married, interests..and some other details) which are also public are open to advertisers usage. Depending on the offer, advertisers can narrow down particular targets that may be potentially interested in the ads and clicking on it. Thus why you're getting these "singles" ads or any ads that may strangely relate to you (based on your profile). Its not as bad as you may think since Facebook is known for being extremely anal about what kind of offers advertisers are allowed to put up.

Online marketing is a big business with lots of money. Facebook has tons of money to gain from it, considering the advertiser gets charge as little as $0.05 a click and upwards...depending on the competition and other mathematical factors. Of course theres a whole other process that has to happen even before the advertiser actually gets any commission. Its a tough business, but if done right, you can make quite a bit of money.....(yah i've been dabbling around with it for the past 6 months and yes...there is $$$$ to be made).

imho those are both bad "sides".

I just hate advertisement using your private info. I rarely give info away to other websites because of this unless I know for sure they don't abuse my personal info.

Also I noticed some ads use your IP to trace your location and give ads like, meet these girls blabla near <your location>... Which I think is just stupid.

I also use some ads (Google Adsense) on my site hoping to pay my bills at my hosting company with it. But at least I try using ads which are related to the subjects on the site and without any popups. I think this is more user friendly.

I needed to add some ads because traffic is at least 20GB a month now... And I even didn't had time to update the site last few months...

so did you set up the will for your cat?

who get's the toy mouse and kitecat crunchies?

...the next cat :) anyway, my cat won't die, ever....





.....hes just too awsome

I signed up for the Dating thing on Facebook.

Whilst I made sure my location is known (ie England), all I get is messages from Americans...

Tbh, I think targeted ads are a god-send.
You will see ads whether you like it or not. It's just the way business works on the web. I find it a lot more acceptable when it concerns products/services I am actually interested in. Heck, I have discovered some very interesting products and things his way I would never have found without the advertising.

Next to that, the web is inherently untrustworthy. You should *always* consider any and all information you put out there to be Public Domain. No matter what any EULA or Privacy statements tell you. Someone will always get their hands on it and use it for business purposes.

The very act of signing up on a site that requires your personal details basically means you are making yourself Fair Game for advertising companies.

You can agree or disagree with this, but that's just the way it is.

I agree with Jim.

Although I could do without all the crappy dating services adds. I want a new girlfriend like I want a lobotomy! How about trying to sell me some great rock music instead? You useless cretinous morons!

Don't publish personal details anywhere. Use 2 main emails, one for registering to sites like that, and one for business/family.

Even on these forums, it would only take $30? ($20 if the manual includes access) to get access to this forum and have a very simple crawler gather every single email in all of our profiles, then they could just generate an email to each of the addresses claiming to be mark or brl. They could request personal details, passwords, etc and you know one or two people who bumped their head in the shortbus are going to fall for it.

That's just blitz forums, which I would consider extremely safe compared to the big sites out there that you think you can trust. Ex: gmail/hotmail, where you can do a search through all your mail. Dont think institutions have access to those databases? Or that 3rd parties don't? Be careful.