{"id":22572,"date":"2011-07-12T10:04:17","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T15:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=22572"},"modified":"2011-07-12T10:04:17","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T15:04:17","slug":"ask-leo-are-you-being-stalked-by-ad-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/ask-leo-are-you-being-stalked-by-ad-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Leo: Are You Being Stalked by Ad Networks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"askleo\"<\/p>\n

By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n

I feel like I’m being stalked. I see the same ad all over the place. The thing is that my wife doesn’t; she sees normal ads on the same pages that I see this stalker ad. What’s going on?<\/i><\/p>\n

People get pretty wrapped up when it comes to advertising, particularly
\nanything that uses the word “tracking.” They feel – as you probably do –
\nthat someone is tracking them specifically.<\/p>\n

Well … yes and no.<\/p>\n

Advertisers and advertising networks use as much information as possible to
\nprovide advertisements that are relevant to you and your needs. Sometimes, that might look like they’re following you around a little.<\/p>\n

I see the most common example right here on Ask Leo! I’ll use that as a
\nplace to start.<\/p>\n

Contextual Advertising<\/h3>\n

Many web sites, including Ask Leo!, use Google AdSense to provide ads on the
\nsite, for which the site owners get paid.<\/p>\n

Services, like AdSense, are called “contextual” advertising, because when
\nasked to display an ad on a page, they’ll look at what that page contains and
\nthen try to display ads that are relevant to the topic.<\/p>\n

In other words, I don’t choose what gets advertised – Google does.<\/p>\n

On one hand, it’s not always spot-on. On the other, Google’s advertising
\nservice takes much<\/em> more than just page content into account. The
\nconcept is pretty simple: provide advertisements that are as relevant
\nto what you’re doing as possible.<\/p>\n

Of course, that means they’re interested in what you’re doing.<\/p>\n

Tracking does not imply personally identifiable<\/h3>\n

We talk often about “tracking cookies”, which is one of many ways that
\nadvertising services determine “what you’re doing”.<\/p>\n

For example, if you run around and visit a few web hosting service web sites,
\nas I sometimes do, you may find that advertisements on completely unrelated
\nsites are suddenly all about web hosting.<\/p>\n

I can see that it might feel like they’re stalking you.<\/p>\n

What’s happened, however, is that the advertising service has collected
\ninformation about where you’ve been – typically, through ads that it placed on
\nthose sites as well – and uses that to infer, “This person is looking at a lot
\nof web hosting sites. He must be looking for web hosting. Let’s show him ads
\nfor web hosting.”<\/p>\n

I run into this all the time<\/em>. I regularly visit my own hosting
\nservice’s site, and for quite a while afterwards, almost every site that I visit that
\nruns Google’s AdSense shows me ads for that host.<\/p>\n

Does that imply that they know what Leo Notenboom is doing, that I specifically
\nam being watched?<\/p>\n

Not at all. If it did, they’d know that I’m already a customer. All that it means is
\nthat a computer algorithm somewhere simply noticed, “This browser visited
\nthese sites, so let’s feed it these ads.”<\/p>\n

Advertisers and advertising networks don’t care about you<\/em> as an
\nindividual; what they care about and watch are the actions of millions<\/em>
\nof people in order to understand trends. They care about what the most people
\nare looking for and acting on.<\/p>\n

As an individual, you just aren’t that interesting.<\/p>\n

Article continued here<\/a><\/p>\n

This post is excerpted with Leo’s permission from his blog.<\/p>\n

FaceBook URL: Leo’s Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter URL: http:\/\/twitter.com\/askleo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"askleo\"<\/p>\n

By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n

Contextual advertising uses on-site clues and additional information to place ads that are likely to be useful to site visitors, or to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":66012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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