THE INTERNET IS WATCHING YOU

Everything you do online is being used to track you and guess what you’ll want to do next

 Online shops such as Amazon swear by one rule: get to know everything about our customers. The more information it has, the more specific its user profiles will be, and the more effective its advertisements. Thus, products that one has viewed on Amazon influence the display of others. For instance, if someone buys a Wii game console, he will be offered accessories for it in the future.

Many find this invasive and Amazon has had to face criticism from individuals, activists, and even the media. German TV host Günther Jauch famously called out the store after he once received a package with something he called “erotic”, which had not been meant for him. Since then he has constantly received pornographic recommendations. Though Jauch’s surprise has given rise to plenty of jokes about his supposed gifting ideas, it also exposes the weaknesses of this system. Amazon does not know that the erotic product was not supposed to match with Jauch’s profile.

Amazon also often displays products that are not of interest to the customer—a waste of advertising space. In one such example, Amazon displayed two different types of refill packs for a coffee machine it was selling, in the advertising module titled “Customers who bought this product also bought…..” The packs did not work with this machine at all! This is annoying for those who see an opportunity and quickly buy what looks like a good product, assuming it matches.

 Analyzing surfing habits 

 Behavioral Targeting techniques are an evolution of this idea, which many marketing professionals consider a wonder weapon. Behavior-based advertisement displays take into account where the user comes from, which websites he has visited previously, and what he has clicked on.

For a long time, Google’s AdWords service has been displaying advertisements after detecting keywords on a web page. However since March 2009, the search giant has also been offering behavioral targeting and can display specific advertisements to groups of people. For instance, if a user has been browsing through a sportswear website for a football shirt in August, he might be shown ads for another website with Christmas offers on similar products in December.  Google itself describes its technique as using cookies which save tracking information on users' computers.

The possibilities available to a shop through behavior-based display are as endless as the creativity of search and marketing providers. If a customer only clicks on special offers, the online shop can even discourage him by directing him to a slow server in the future and spoiling the fun of bargain shopping. In addition, the dealer puts the customer at a disadvantage by not displaying advertisements related to special offers. These will be shown only to customers they want to reward!

Online shops also apply marketing tips from the real world. For instance, if a retailer wants to attract only well-to-do customers, leaflets with attractive offers are only put in mailboxes in upmarket areas with well-situated residents. Similarly, one can use geolocation information to analyze the place of origin of a surfer and recommend specific offers to him or her.  The coordinates obtained through IP address identification on the Internet are very fine-grained, but  modern cellphones and certain desktop browsers now supply precise GPS locations, which can even be used to guess the financial behavioral pattern of any surfer.