An Audience of One - Uncle Bill wants YOU!

David Heath
Friday, 07 March 2008 06:42

Your IT - Home IT

How comfortable would you be knowing that, in the future, the advertising you see through your TV, PC, PDA, mobile phone, iPod or DVD player were customised to YOU? Much has been made of the future of communication; how the “old news” is dead and the “new news” will inherit the earth.  That we will soon receive all our entertainment via one-to-one channels – direct to our PC screen, TV or (more importantly) to our portable device, after all, you can’t be accessible if your outlet is still in your lounge room and you’re out on the street!

This is much easier than the oft-described scenes from the movie “Minority Report,” where personalised advertising messages are delivered to the protagonist on wall-mounted screens as he runs down the street, presumably identified by some biometric system (or perhaps he has a subcutaneous identification transmitter).

Brad Smith, General Counsel for Microsoft appeared last night on ABC’s Lateline extolling the possibilities of a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo.  His principle argument centred on Microsoft’s desire to be number two in on-line advertising and the ability to see (albeit remotely) where number one (Google) was.

Smith described a variety of scenarios where (for instance) you might have researched travel on your internet service and later that evening be delivered tourism-focussed advertising whilst watching a movie on free-to-air TV whereas your neighbour might have researched new cars on his internet connection and been delivered new car advertisements during the same ad-break while watching the same movie.

For some strange reason, Smith seems to think this is a good idea!

If this kind of analysis and delivery system becomes commonplace, gone are any remaining shreds of privacy.  It’s as simple as that.

When the advertisers know so much about what you want, what you think will happen with the information?  Will they toss it away once you buy that new car?  Good luck with that hope!  Instead they will end up knowing so much about you that they can accurately predict what to stock in stores; how many cars of some new model to manufacture (and simply deliver them to the front door of the correct customers, without the need for those customers to actually make the purchase decision!).

So, a short ‘love-letter.’  Dear Mr Smith.  Please do not profile me.  I’m much happier remaining anonymous.  I would prefer to make my own decisions regarding my purchases.  I feel very nervous in the knowledge you will know so much about me and I will actively avoid those vendors who use your service.  Kind regards.