In last weekend's magazine, I wrote about how the rise of targeted advertising is transforming online privacy and fragmenting our politics, news and culture. By describing the new technologies, which include real-time bidding auctions, where advertisers bid on the right to send us ads wherever we go online (and increasingly on our mobile devices), I tried to get at the costs of living in an increasingly personalized virtual universe. These include the "filter bubble" problem — where the ads and news we see are tailored to profiles that we can't access or control — and the problem of digital redlining, where we may receive different discounts online, or even pay different prices at the mall, based on invisible judgments about how much advertisers think we're worth.
The reader reactions to the story have been great. Many have mentioned that they avoid tracking by blocking cookies and have provided helpful suggestions about their favorite programs or apps for avoiding tracking. (I use Ghostery myself.) Here's a sampling of suggestions:
It is VERY easy to block all tracking software on your browser. Just load Ghostery or a similar piece of software.
I use NoScript, RemoveItPermanently and some other things that have proven useful.
I use Firefox with AdBlock and a pop-up blocker, and delete all cookies when I close my browser and sometimes several times during an extended online session. I see no ads. If I want to buy something, I am perfectly capable of making a purchasing decision without a ceaseless assault.
And above all: turn off your computer and go out to smell the flowers.
I've also appreciated hearing about search engines like DuckDuckGo that don't track or share your search results, and have raised awareness about the dangers of online tracking and the filter bubble.
Despite these excellent and practical suggestions for fending off cookies, we should continue to be concerned about the increasing social fragmentation that's resulting from what some call "follow me" advertising. The truth is, although it's not hard to manage or block cookies, most people don't do it (fewer than 15 percent, according to a survey I quoted in the article). And in the future, it will be much harder to avoid targeted ads as they migrate from the Web to our mobile devices and to digital TV.
For these reasons, regulatory responses may be necessary. And on that score, I like the two suggestions of Jeff Sovern, a law professor at St. John's University and coordinator of the Consumer Law and Policy blog:
Congress should give consumers a right to discover what information merchants have about them and to correct mistakes, just as it has done with credit reports. Individualized advertising may also result in people of different ethnicities, religions, and genders systematically seeing different ads. If, say, a disproportionate number of whites get ads for inexpensive Hawaiian vacations, others may effectively be excluded from such vacations. Just as federal law requires lenders to disclose information about mortgage lending so we can see if some groups receive favored treatment, Web marketers should be obliged to disclose information about who receives which offers.
All browsers should have a "Do not track" setting that Web sites should have to abide by. The other route is to use a VPN service, set up a fake surfing identity and then do as you please and not worry about who is gathering what about the fake person.
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