We have taken a back seat and watched as the internet complains about how Google Inc will be ‘spying’ on us and be able to give access to all our information for selling ads.
Now we need to speak up, and argue that this sharing of information is a great thing, for you, the consumer.
How many times have you been watching a video on YouTube, and had to sit through 30 seconds of utter useless c**p, that doesn’t matter to you in the slightest.
Now imagine that, for the last few hours, you’ve been looking for an apartment in London, either via Google.com, your android device or any of their online services. And then whilst browsing the internet you see more ads for realtors with available properties in London as oppose to ads for holiday tickets to Siberia or pop albums, is it a bad thing?
Google doesn’t tell anyone what YOU as an individual wants. Instead, an algorithm will make your shopping, researching and browsing more efficient by showing you more content that matches your previous browsing history.
What this means is YOU are indirectly demanding information from Google on topics YOU are interested in, the privacy policy is just a legality for them to allow the algorithm to work.
Some may complain about the inability to opt-out, but even their browser has the ability to launch ‘incognito windows’ from which no cache, history or cookies are stored. To put it simply, if you do not want to see relevant ads, then don’t log in to the powerful and free Google services, that way they have no way to ‘gather intelligence’.
What do you think? Are directed adverts such a bad idea?