Sunday, December 2, 2007

While mostof people are concerning about potential damages of personal information by using location-tracking systems, they should also be aware of those behavioral targeting ads may invade their privacy and can choose if they will be tracked or not. A kind of digital programs are used to capture web surfers’ records about what websites they have visited and saved them for future behavioral targeting ads, cookies have been applied widely at present by numerous online advertisers. By collecting a great deal of data, advertisers may uncover many clients’ personal information, which can be extremely private and sensitive, such as banking information or records. To support the claim that web surfers should be informed that behavioral tracking ads can invade their privacy, Catherine Holahan quotes Dave Morgan, TACODA’s founder and chairman, who says “Privacy is a challenging area and consumers will want to go to safer alternatives”. In other words, web surfers will prone to use safer websites in the sake of privacy. Some corporations, for instance, in my country, China, have already stopped using behavioral targeting ads online even though they seem more effective and precise. The founders of those corporations believe that take care of privacy will attract more businesses in the future ads market. In brief, being acknowledged the possible risks of behavioral targeting ads, web surfers should have the right to choose whether be tracked.

No comments: