A Fuller View

It a very storming in the UK today - the 1st big one this winter and spring in on the door step. I think there is another storm brewing over privacy and the uses of cookie data (user profiles, behavioral targeting etc) to target ads. I’ll point to 3 pieces that form part of my thesis:

1. AOL trying to get ahead of the curve (smart move, btw)
2. UK start-up Phorm getting into hot water
3. More on the decline of users on social networking sites - I wonder if maybe some people are getting turned off by all the advertising (here’s a previous example I posted) and the spam (although I bet this is a small impact) on social networking sites?
4. This NYT piece also worth a read re: this subject

SAI says they see Google as the least exposed of the big 4. I disagree as the have user data across multiple services (mail, docs, igoogle, etc) and this appears to me that this data is used to help tagret ads. To an end user looks like a profile and looks spooky. All the big players need to have solid PR and education programs in place around privacy and profile targeting (this my generic term fo all user type targeting tied to a cookie).

Simon B on AdViking says he thinks social advertising could be a real thing and a real business model - he even provides a meta algorithm here. I agree only if I can be in control and that the recommendation side gets easier to access. My biggest complaint is that many of social networking sites expect the users to do to much work, = boring. One of my biggest complaints about FB was the lack of usability. Maybe FB + IYP database + Google maps = a better experience?