The world of creepy targeted ads
Ever wondered why some ads on social media are so creepily personal? Ever wondered what happens when you search for that specific product and find it everywhere the next minute? Well, it all translates to user profiling. Let us see what that means.
Advertisements have seen a gargantuan growth with the internet boom. It has become more personalized and targeted. Thanks to modern-day complex algorithms, it has been easier than ever to create personalised ads. The big tech companies have been profiling users based on their interests and pushing the same recommendations based on their interests. Whenever you search for a specific product or anything in general that query gets registered with your account. After that, the frequency of that search is calculated, and based on that, you are targeted ads.
Now, you might think that it doesn't seem to be problematic right? After all, it should be good that all those ads are personalised and not some random stuff. Well, it might be true to some extent but that's not the bigger picture. These big tech companies know everything about you. Critical information like your current location, favourite food, your device, your preferred restaurants, residence, places you've visited, where you work, basically everything about you. As long as there isn't any data leak everything is fine. In case of any data leak form their servers, all this information becomes publicly available. This is where the trouble begins. Imagine someone having full access to your personal information without your knowledge. This is the problem with user profiling. Sadly enough, targeted ads work on user profiling only.
Although this can't be completely avoided it can be reduced to some extent. For instance, using VPNs (not those free ones). Turning off your location and browsing incognito. Using privacy-focused search engines like DuckDuckGo. To be honest, the damage that has been done cannot be reversed but further damage can be avoided.
Let's pledge to protect our privacy.