Do Not Track Does Not Conquer

Do Not Track Does Not Conquer

Posted Oct 22, 2012 20:33 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: Do Not Track Does Not Conquer by njwhite
Parent article: Do Not Track Does Not Conquer

targeted advertising is still advertising. It still is intended to get you to make a less rational decision than you would otherwise.

That is a very narrow view of advertising. There is one kind of advertising that is intended to get you to make a less rational decision, but there is plenty of advertising that is intended to educate you so you can make a better rational decision. Many times the education is simply letting you know the product is available. Other times, it's telling you something you didn't know about the product. In some cases, advertising brings your attention to a feature of the product you would otherwise overlook in your rational decision-making process.

The basic educational aspect of ads sometimes gets lost in the creative ways the ad must present the information in light of the audience's limited mental capacity -- advertisers are fighting for every millisecond of your thinking time and byte of your memory -- but that doesn't change the ad's objective.

I can't really understand why anybody would want targeted advertising. I kind of presume they can't have really thought about the implications very hard. Do argue with me, though ;)

No one can argue with you unless you get more specific than you have so far about those implications.

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