eCommerce

 

Privacy policies and targeting us with the 'right' advertisements
By Peter Yexley

www.websitemarketingexperts.co.uk

The New Wave of Privacy Policy Tools

Privacy is a major concern especially in the World Wide Web and it may be sooner than we think that Governments begin to legislate, unless the major players self-govern with voluntary responsibilities.

Yahoo has released a beta version of Ad Interest Manager, enabling users to see what personal information Yahoo uses about them to deliver relevant advertisements.

This means that Yahoo will be able to serve up online advertisements perfectly targeted at you, based on information gleaned about you. The privacy tool will allow you to see such information.

Yahoo isn't alone with this initiative and it is anticipated that more will follow, perhaps in anticipation of any government involvement.

Google launched "Google Dashboard" to give users more transparency and control over their privacy.

Google Dashboard embraces more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web history, Orkut (Social networking and discussion site operated by Google), YouTube, Picasa (Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos), Talk, Reader, Alerts and Latitude (Find your mates on a map from your phone or PC).

It is yet to be seen whether such tools may be more smoke and mirrors than improved privacy.

Facebook recently introduced changes to its privacy policy, with plans to eliminate regional networks as a way of connecting users.

It will also add settings that allow users to control who sees each individual piece of content they create or upload as well as combine some settings on the privacy settings page in the hopes of making it simpler to use.

Recently I conducted a search in Google for some specific boots and later was surprised to see advertisements for these boots on pages that I was viewing. I thought it was coincidence as the actual pages had noting whatoever to do with boots.

It may be welcomed by many if it makes shopping online a better experience and we are delivered advertisements that are genuinely targeted at us, based on our activities.

Now, here's a can of worms - suppose your spouse used the computer before you, searching for a gift for you and every page you are on delivers a related advertisements.

More sinister is if you began to use that computer and dating ads started to appear or advertisements with adult content!