Targeted Marketing
Targeted Marketing
Donna R Nelson
Southern New Hampshire University
Author Note This paper was prepared for Introduction to Information Technology taught by Michael Eckler.
Targeted Marketing They’re watching you! They know where you’ve been! Your information is being collected by the many websites that you visit. But who are they and what kind of information are they collecting? How are they collecting your personal data? Is it dangerous? These are just some of the questions being asked by internet consumers today concerned about their privacy. How do companies use cookies to monitor our individual preferences and what are the ethical implications of targeted marketing?
Each time you browse the internet you leave a bit of information about yourself. You may be wondering how this happens. It’s all about the cookies. Cookies are small files that a website saves to your computer. These cookies store information about which sites you visited, what you searched for and any of your clicks on “likes” or “follows” that you choose. These files may be first-party cookies, which are placed by the website that you visited to customize your browsing experience, such as when you are shopping on the internet; or third-party cookies, which usually come from advertising agencies (Pegoraro, 2006).
First-party cookies are usually benign and provide the internet user with the convenience of remembering your login information for sites that you frequent. Third-party cookies, also known as “tracking cookies”, are placed by someone other than the actual website that you visited. These cookies are usually placed by advertising companies which may share your information with other marketers. Third-party cookies are used to tailor ads that may interest you based on your browsing history (Cookies: Leaving a Trail on the Web, 2011).
Since these ads are based on your internet browsing history, they tend to promote products that you are more likely to be interested
Donna R Nelson
Southern New Hampshire University
Author Note This paper was prepared for Introduction to Information Technology taught by Michael Eckler.
Targeted Marketing They’re watching you! They know where you’ve been! Your information is being collected by the many websites that you visit. But who are they and what kind of information are they collecting? How are they collecting your personal data? Is it dangerous? These are just some of the questions being asked by internet consumers today concerned about their privacy. How do companies use cookies to monitor our individual preferences and what are the ethical implications of targeted marketing?
Each time you browse the internet you leave a bit of information about yourself. You may be wondering how this happens. It’s all about the cookies. Cookies are small files that a website saves to your computer. These cookies store information about which sites you visited, what you searched for and any of your clicks on “likes” or “follows” that you choose. These files may be first-party cookies, which are placed by the website that you visited to customize your browsing experience, such as when you are shopping on the internet; or third-party cookies, which usually come from advertising agencies (Pegoraro, 2006).
First-party cookies are usually benign and provide the internet user with the convenience of remembering your login information for sites that you frequent. Third-party cookies, also known as “tracking cookies”, are placed by someone other than the actual website that you visited. These cookies are usually placed by advertising companies which may share your information with other marketers. Third-party cookies are used to tailor ads that may interest you based on your browsing history (Cookies: Leaving a Trail on the Web, 2011).
Since these ads are based on your internet browsing history, they tend to promote products that you are more likely to be interested
References: M, Arthur. (2008, December 23). The Ethics of Behavioral Targeting in Internet Advertising. Retrieved from zMogo website: http://www.zmogo.com/the-ethics-of-behavioral-targeting/ OnGuardOnline. (2011, November). Cookies: Leaving a Trail on the Web. Retrieved from OnGuardOnline website: http://www.onguardonline.gov/articles/0042-cookies-leaving-trail-web Pegoraro, R. How online marketers target you. (2012, March 2). Retrieved from USA Today website: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-03-04/internet-cookies- tracking/53336396/1 Smith, N C; Cooper-Martin, E (1997, July). Ethics and target marketing: The role of product harm and consumer vulnerability. Journal of Marketing (v61n3), 1-2. Stephenson, J. Is Target Marketing Ethical? (2008, July 24). Retrieved from Ezine Articles Website: http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Target-Marketing-Ethical?&id=1333342