Advertising

Been thinking about web advertising and “fake news”. This is a question about what contents are delivered to you.

In our Internet age, advertisers have access to a staggering amount of personal information to target their advertising due to networks like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others.

While this is a drastic improvement for the advertising world, little has changed from a consumer’s perspective. We are still pretending that we are being marketed to blindly like traditional ads on TV or in magazines. This is certainly not true.

There is a vast machinery behind the scene that takes ever increasing amounts of personal data and use that to the benefits of the advertisers.

It’s time that we, the consumers, find out more about this. This type of power imbalance is a better use of political power (see Robert Caro’s books on power). Yes, I’m speaking of regulations.

Imagine if Facebook were required by regulations to be fully transparent in how consumers are being marketed to. That the consumers can go to a profile page - to see and be able to opt-out how they are categorized in marketing terms. If I don’t want to be marketed to as a republican or a vegan, I can see and choose to opt-out.

This will restore some power to the consumers’ side that would commensurate with the power already collected by the advertisers and data brokers.

It’s a start.