Nanotargeting Ads

The story I linked below is a great example of the power -and danger- of information that the digital world is now providing to buyers, and the dual threat of targeted advertising the web makes more possible.

The baseline information is important. Many of the things people do online are watched or tracked, and the information collected is for sale. Facebook and Gmail are easy examples of it; both services target ads to people based on what's in their email, on their Facebook page, on their friends' pages, and so on. The information collected empowers the ad targeting, so that later ads can be tailored to specific categories of users. The goal is reaching the right people at the right time. The catch is that the people receiving it don't necessarily realize they were targeted at all.

Case and point: http://www.politicsmagazine.com/magazine-issues/february-2010-the-case-study-issue/nanotargeted-pressure/.

This is only the beginning.