When you go to a website that has
ads on the side, not all other users are seeing the same ads that you are. Why is this? That site may be using some type
of profiling to best connect with their audience.
Websites want to connect with their audience (There is no person to person contact through an online interface, so they must use other ways to give the audience a feeling of personal attention). Websites do this by making sure that ads and other features on the site are directly related to the people viewing their site. They do this by connecting to social media accounts and also by asking viewers to take surveys when they visit the site. These surveys are of particular use because they enable the webpage to ask for personal information, such as age, gender or race, without having to be overly pushy. I've noticed that a lot of surveys ask these personnel questions even when they seem to have nothing to do with the actual content of the survey.
This aspect of the internet scares
me. There are pages and pages of
information on how best to connect with the viewer and how to garner statistics
about who is visiting your site. What if
I am being exposed to only a tiny bit of what is out there because people are
making assumptions about what I am interested in based on my age, gender or
occupation?
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