Topic Proposal: Two Perspectives on Targeted Advertising: The Consumer v. The Advertiser

For my final project I wish to explore the world of targeted advertising within the social media world.  I became interested in this when I was applying for a job within the Leo Burnett Advertising company.  On part of the application I was required to write a short essay on the use of targeted advertising in social media and why I believed it to be important and where I saw it going in the future.   I didn’t have an answer and I still don’t have an answer, and this is why I am very interested in writing on this topic. 

It’s scary to think that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, and many other search engines and social media outlets are tracking every little thing you do.  Every time you sign up for a social media outlet and provide your name, age, email, gender and geographic location, you are essentially profiling yourself to companies who can then target you with their ads.  Search engines, such as Google, will track anything you search, even key words in your personal emails, anything they think might be valuable that they can then sell to advertisers to target you with ads.  They do this in hopes that the ads they have selected to place on your sidebar will be a product or service that you will want.  Advertisers no longer have to waste their time and money trying to advertise to the larger population.  Now, advertisers can specifically target a smaller sample of people that are more likely to spend their money on the products and services.

For my research I want to look at both the consumer and the advertiser’s perspectives of the issues concerning targeted advertising.  I want to focus on the rise of targeted advertising within the various social media outlets and how companies are legally or illegally tracking consumers’ information.  What legislation is being made to limit consumer tracking and help ensure consumer privacy?  I also want to explore how much companies are profiting over new targeted ads in comparison with older techniques of marketing and advertising.  Do the benefits of targeted advertising outweigh the potential risks to consumer privacy? 

Personally, I am frightened by the idea of my every move being tracked on the internet.  However, from an advertiser’s perspective, targeted advertising is a gold mine.  I don’t believe that targeted advertising is a threat to personal safety and privacy as long as the information taken is solely used for the purpose of advertising and isn’t distributed further to any outside third parties.  The business of targeted advertising is complicated and must be examined through both the lens of a consumer and the lens of the advertiser in order to truly understand both sides of the issue.   

Los Twitteros: Mexico to Pass Legislation on Social Media Regulation

Drug cartels and other associated crime have been major issues that have plagued the Mexican government in this modern era. With death tolls mounting over means of distribution and power struggles, the government is seeking to pass a major piece of legislation that would curb a fair amount of this internal turmoil. What kind of legislationn? A regulation of Twitter, of course.

The justifications by lawmakers to pass a bill of this magnitude is not founded without a level of moral high ground. Twitter has been used by some Mexicans to avoid police sobriety checkpoints and there is greater speculation that the cartels are using social media tools as a means of strengthening their internal operations. According to Nazario Norberto,  “We have to regulate these websites to make sure there aren’t people breaking the law, making death threats or committing crimes via electronic means.”

However, the legislation is coming under scrutiny for its ethical implications. A provision in the bill would create a "cybernetic police force"to monitor such Twitter feeds as @AntiAA_DF, Anti Alcoholimetro. Even though the bill has been created with the purpose of stopping minor to severe illegal activity, civil liberty groups and the greater Mexican population are outraged at the prospect of having Big Brother watching their activity.

In the context of our class discussion, this type of mandate regulation offers a significant example of the dichotomy of ethics that challenges government regulation of media. The regulation of the digital space through acts of surveillance is the next step from what Havens & Lotz describe in Chapter 4. The parallels of justification between the Federal Trade Commission previous mandates and the Mexican legislative proposal are positioned as means to protect the greater public and is a necessary condition to observe as it raises question of digital control. It will be interesting to watch how and if this law is passed in Mexico and if a similar type of regulation is adopted in the United States under the shared logic of public crime protection.

SOPA Losses Momentum

The Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) is losing momentum in the House and Senate according to the "Washington Post's Wonkblog."  The number of lawmakers who oppose the bill has increased as a shift in the bodies of government has occurred since the introduction of the bill.  According to the article the acts "were all but inevitable" 6 months ago but the opposition is increasing within the House and Senate.  The opposition to SOPA began on media outlets such as Twitter and Reddit.  They organized large scale and effective protests which drew the attention of the government.   

The White House also is involved in the loss of momentum by SOPA.  A statement was released which said  “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cyber security risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."  With the hold up in the legislative branch and open opposition from the executive branch SOPA is slowing in the law making bodies of the U.S.

It is not to say SOPA is dead but it is being reevaluated and the potential for changes is now an option.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/sopa-lawmakers-backing-away-from-online-piracy-bills/2012/01/16/gIQAg7BT3P_blog.html#excerpt

Twitter: Response to Disaster

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/riots-spread-on-social-media-as-does-the-cleanup/#more-69623

This article, taken from the New York Time's media blog, discusses the use of Twitter in a national response to riots and looting in several London neighborhoods near the beginning of August. Astoundingly, the twitter hashtag gained more than 70,00 followers, according to the article.

Through Twitter, a volunteer desiring to help those afflicted by the riots began a Twitter following which helped to enlist a large number of volunteers. The influence of media was also clear in this article when the author, Jennifer Preston, discussed how London police turned to Facebook and Flickr in order to identify possible looters in the case.

Often times, it seems like the realm which media affects is limited to either entertainment or informative news - these social networking tools are viewed as means of expressing thoughts feelings, and information, with no response other than a virtual one expected by the poster. This seems not to be the case anymore.

While this article may have more of a negative tone than others on this blog, I find it important to remember that the influence of social networking tools is far more important than just sharing information about entertainment or news. Social networking is now the tool that helps to initiate real responses to many types of events.

In this case, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr are defining the response to a national tragedy, something that certainly wouldn't have happened even a few years ago. A post by a stranger united 70,000 people in the face of tragedy, and the means of inviting people to this group is accessible to anyone. The role of social networking tools, then, is clearly more than just to offer information, but it is to unite and affect a community's actions and decisions - a big role for a 140 character Twitter post.