This document discusses how technology companies collect user data to target advertising. It notes that while many services are free to users, the companies collect and sell user information. Google, Facebook, and internet service providers track user behavior across the web and devices in order to build detailed profiles used to target ads. The extensive data collection means users are constantly treated as marketing tools, demographics, and targets by these companies.

1. Andy Hayes
Social Impact of
Technology
Section 70
April 2014
TECHNOLOGY
MAKES US A MARKETING TOOL,
DEMOGRAPHIC, AND TARGET

2. ¡ The Paradigm of
“Free”
¡ The Value of Your
Information
¡ You as a:
• Marketing Tool
• Demographic
• Target
¡ Google
¡ Facebook
¡ Astroturfing
¡ Your ISP too?
¡ Conclusions
¡ Sources
TOPICS

3. On the internet, if you’re not the paying customer,
you are the product.
¡ Users have come to expect web-based content and services to
be provided for free.
¡ Since the proliferation of the internet and the resulting dot-com
boom, free access to search engines, webmail, and social
networking have been provided for free.
¡ More recently, mobile apps and cloud storage have offered free
basic offerings, with modest cost for heavier/extended use.
¡ It is the need to monetize these services, given to the end user
for free, that drives companies to collect, analyze, and sell
information from users.
¡ This information-based market makes every internet user a
marketing tool, a demographic, and a target.
THE PARADIGM OF “FREE”

4. How do advertisers know what you like? Every
Facebook post, Google search, and iPhone app of yours
tells them for you.
¡ Every product has a target market – the people most likely to buy
based on their demographics and interests.
¡ Advertising campaigns can be extremely expensive. Online
advertisements are paid by number of clicks and views. Targeting
the exposure of these ads ensures that every click or view is
coming from someone most likely to buy.
¡ Nearly every advertisement you see online is tailored to you
because of your demographic. Manufacturers have a profile of their
ideal customer. Advertisers have a profile of you, based on your
information. When you see advertisements, it’s because these two
profiles have aligned for the advertised product and you.
THE VALUE OF YOUR INFORMATION

5. ¡ Marketing Tool
• The information that you give out to any website, knowingly or not, is used to
market to you more effectively. This information can also be extrapolated to
others who fit your demographics. You’re helping marketers sell to you and
your friends.
¡ Demographic
• While we all have personal demographics, every piece of technology you own,
every website you visit, and every blogger’s opinion you adopt puts you in a
demographic. The more you browse, the more boxes you tick. 18-24 years old,
OSX user, Reddit member, Facebook addict with lots of Photoshop questions:
Google knows what I’m up to, and they know exactly how to market to me.
¡ Target
• You are a target market. Always have been, even if you existed before the web.
That shouldn’t be news to you, but what’s new is the sheer number of people,
organizations, and companies who have a vested interest in getting your
attention. The more technology embedded in your lifestyle, the more avenues
there are to market to you.
• As will be touched on in the Astroturfing and ISP sections, there’s the
opportunity for those tracking you on the web to commit egregious breaches of
your privacy, making you a target of hackers and overzealous law enforcement.
Whether the NSA gets your information from Facebook illicitly, or your Internet
provider hands over your files to the OPP without a warrant, your rights are
reduced when your information is collected.
YOU AS A…

6. Google isn’t a search engine anymore, they’re an
advertising company. Their public-facing products
serve to collect information to market with or sell.
¡ Google products are ubiquitous on the web. They’re often the
best or most popular of their kind: Search, YouTube, Gmail,
Maps, Drive, Docs, Android OS, and the Play Store.
¡ Google tracks a user’s activity across their various services on
the web. Your Gmail messages are tied to your searches,
recently watched YouTube videos, and (through your Android
device and Maps) your phone number and location.
¡ The aggregated information you provide gives Google an
extremely accurate picture with which to advertise to you.
GOOGLE

7. You took your videos off YouTube, migrated your
email, and closed your G+ account. Google is still
tracking you. Here’s how.
¡ Google Analytics is a paid Google product, targeted at website
owners.
¡ Analytics can be added to any website you own, including those
based around a CMS such as Squarespace or Wordpress.org.
¡ Analytics uses tracking cookies to follow a user around the web
after they visit a website. The website’s owner can see
anonymized information about visitors including: time spent on
website, repeat visits, pages viewed, advertisements clicked,
links followed, device, browser, and referring Google searches.
¡ PS, Google still reads every email you send to a Gmail user.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

8. GOOGLE
Google Analytics report showing visitors’ web activity.

9. News at Eleven says Facebook is a privacy threat, and they’re more
right than they know – The largest threat is not on Facebook, it is
Facebook.
¡ Facebook’s primary collection of data comes from what we’re intending to
share with our friends – full name, email, phone number, address, and of
course what we like.
¡ Facebook’s collection does not end on their website or app. Every visit
adds a tracking cookie to your computer that catalogues your activity on
the web and reports it to Facebook. This cookie never expires, not even if
you log out – it must be manually deleted.
¡ Installing the Facebook app on your mobile device allows Facebook full
access to your text messages and contacts. Their new Messenger app can
place calls directly from the app – keeping an eye on all your social
interactions.
¡ “Login with Facebook” feature allows Facebook to not only see other sites
you’re visiting (they can anyway), but see exactly what you’re doing on any
site they sign you into.
FACEBOOK

10. Facebook realized that savvy browsers pay no
attention to ads, but let their guard down for posts.
So they started selling posts as ads.
¡ Any given post from a page only reaches ~10% of
subscribers. Page owners must pay to promote further.
¡ Facebook gives page owners the option to promote based
on demographics and interests. The targeting metrics will
astound you – nearly every piece of data that Facebook
mines can be put to use.
MARKETING WITH FACEBOOK

11. FACEBOOK
Targeting an ad for a Wedding planner looking for clients. 6.4 million active users in
Ontario, narrowed to a target market of 56,000 – less than 1 in 100.

12. On the Internet, nobody can see who signs your
paycheque.
¡ Astroturfing is when a paid representative posts online in
support of their company or organization under the guise of an
unaffiliated individual posting their opinion.
¡ Astroturfers are common on blogging platforms such as Tumblr,
Wordpress, and Twitter. They may comment on Disqus threads,
post on Reddit, or even edit Wikipedia articles about their
companies (all more commonly than you may think).
¡ Etymology: The term was coined to describe a fake grassroots
movement. Astroturfing is often political in nature: PACs,
religious groups, and the US Military (Operation Earnest Voice)
are known for using it.
ASTROTURFING

13. What happens when the President of
Rwanda’s PR rep forgets to change
accounts:
Reddit commenters on an unusually obvious
shill post from McDonald’s, upvoted
(analogous to FB “likes”) by bots before
being downvoted by the community.
ASTROTURFING

14. When the service is free, you’re the product. When the service
is paid…well, you’re still the product.
¡ Bell Canada rolled out a program in mid-November 2013 that tracks
customers’ television, web browsing, calling, and cellular usage. In a
press statement, it was explained that this data was used specifically
for targeted advertising to customers, as well as sale to third party
companies. All existing and new customers are enrolled, unless an opt-
out request is given.
¡ Bell’s collected information can be cross-referenced with the
customer’s account information to provide similarly comprehensive
profiles for marketing as giants Facebook and Google do.
¡ “The scope of Bell’s intended personal data usage is remarkable…For
law enforcement, Bell is effectively offering one of the most detailed
profiling services in Canada, which the company can disclose without a
court order as part of an investigation under Canadian privacy law” –
Michael Geist, a technology law expert.
¡ NB: Rogers Communications maintains a similar program, though
customers are opted out by default. I’ve found no evidence of data
collection/aggregation by Telus in my research.
YOUR ISP TOO?

15. It’s simple: if you’re a web user, it’s hard not to lose
a little privacy.
¡ In researching this project, I was astounded by the depth and
breadth of information collected by most major tech companies. It’s
unsurprising that the NSA chose to precipitate leaks from them,
rather than directly collecting citizen data.
¡ Focusing on Facebook and Google was a choice to give two prime
examples of companies who aggregate huge amounts of user data.
They are by no means exclusive. Apple, for example, collects
through their devices heavily.
¡ Skepticism on the web is necessary. Advertisements are no longer
on the banners and borders – they’re the video you’re watching or
the blog post you’re reading. And it’s no accident that you found
them.
¡ There is a need for greater public awareness, and greater industry
regulation. The internet is maturing faster than social constructs
and policy can be formed to reign it in.
CONCLUSIONS

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SOURCES