4. Narrow Casting/Odd Advertisement Placing-Sparknotes

Advertisements are everywhere nowadays-billboards, television, newspapers, buses, bench ads, schools, smartphone apps, social networking sites, and even yearbooks. None of this was really new to me until I started noticing how the advertisements on websites such as Facebook and Sparknotes started getting a little more specific and tailored. 

I, myself, enjoy browsing websites such as Nordstrom for clothes, shoes, and other things in my free time. Most recently, I was told I would be going to a relative's wedding, so I started looking online for a dress and shoes for the event. A little before this, my best friend and I had also browsed Nordstrom's website, looking at Longchamp bags when we were putting off doing a project. 

Several days after I looked the dresses, shoes, and  bags online, I went onto Sparknotes to refresh my memory of some chapters I had read several nights ago for a reading quiz. While I was doing this, I couldn't help but notice the large Nordstrom advertisement at the top of the page, right under the search bar. All the items looked extremely familiar to the items I had looked at several days ago. About an hour later, I logged onto Facebook and noticed another Nordstrom advertisement just like the one on Sparknotes. Upon noticing this, I started clicking on the little thumbnails of items to see if they were the very items I had browsed a few days ago. After looking at every item, it turned out that they were some of the very items I had looked at. 

I didn't know this until watching a Frontline movie called "The Persuaders" in my zero period, several days ago, but there are actually companies, such as Axiom (shown in the movie), that there are companies that gather all sorts of information about you based on what you do online. From online shopping, internet searches, to other things one can do on the internet, these companies can gather all sorts of very specific and detailed information about you and sell it to companies such as Facebook and other large companies to specify what kinds of advertisements you are shown. After learning of these companies, it was pretty clear that Sparknotes also does this with the people that visit their website. 

Because these companies have knowledge about what websites you visit more often, it is also easy to know which ad to but on which website. I go on Facebook and Sparknotes quite often, so it makes sense for me to see a good amount of personalized ads on these websites. I think it's a logical approach to advertising because consumers won't have to be bothered with ads that are completely irrelevant to them and companies can continue tempting consumers with pictures of products the consumer had looked at. However, I can't help but think how much of an invasion of privacy this approach to advertising can be. There are complete strangers out there that probably know us better than we know ourselves. The fact that these companies can see almost every single thing we do online and extract information from it and sell it to more people can be quite intimidating.