Term Paper - The dark underside of New Media & Advertising and its effect on American Life

The dark underside of New Media & Advertising and its effect on American life

Advertising is an integral part of new media and new media is an inseparable part of our life. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, blogging, Snapchat, Pinterest and other media are the new media as of 2014, which are used extensively by one and all. These media not only compete with one another, but also work to each other’s benefits (Levinson, 2009). On one hand, where new media has led to the slow demise of physical interaction, it has led to the rise of interaction with the medium itself. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have extensive advertising because they are free to its users. The ads show up each time one logs on to the site. People like the pages created by advertisers, and discuss about them. The product matters less as the audience participation increases (McLuhan, 305). This powerful new trend in ads has greatly weakened the position of traditional media (Television, Radio and Newspaper) owing to its wider reach and greater affordability. But, like everything else, the change doesn’t necessarily bring only the good along. New media has its downside too.

Advertising gained the initial momentum at the end of the last century with the invention of photoengraving. Ads and pictures then became interchangeable and continue to remain so. (McLuhan, 309). The ads with pictures became instant hit. They became a quick source of information which helped keep abreast with the emerging new trends. The photo and TV seduced people from the literate and private “point of view” to the complex and inclusive world of the group icon. Instead of presenting a private argument or vista, advertising offered a way of life that is for everybody or nobody. (McLuhan, 309). The new media has however turned the inclusive nature of advertising into an exclusive one.

The TV spots are under attack because of ad-skipping devices, ranging from the clicker to the digital video recorder such as TiVo and video on demand. The young generation does not spend as much time with TV as the previous generation does. Today’s youth find Net and electronic games more entertaining due to their interactivity; hence the shift in where advertisers aim their messages. Advertising on Internet is one of the fastest growing businesses. In 2008, the total worldwide advertising revenues reached $65 billion or 10% of all advertising. The more striking thing about these numbers is that the rate of growth for the Internet is much higher than for traditional mass media. The top sectors for advertising were found to be technology, business, retail, finance, sports and leisure, travel, entertainment, home, health and automotive. (Logan, 2010)

The ads are thus not just made for masses today. They are carefully crafted for its loyal target consumers. One-size-fits-all no longer works as it did with broadcast TV. One of the strategies employed by advertisers is to embed the ad in the programming or create infomercials (information + advertisement). Another strategy employs using information gathered by certain companies, whose sole purpose is to provide information about the viewing habits of each household to the advertisers and guide them in launching a direct advertising campaign. (Logan, 2010).

Advertisers pay a certain fee per click. They know that the surfers would be interested in the product or service they are offering or else they would not click. Hence, pay-for-click model is extremely attractive for an advertiser, they can never know of the effectiveness of the ads placed in traditional media such as newspapers, radio, or television. (Logan, 2010). Every computer click is monitored. Over past few months, government snooping, and the collection and storage of vast amounts of raw data in the name of national security have created a great amount of buzz. A greater and more immediate threat to our privacy is coming from thousands of companies that we have never heard of, in the name of commerce. They are called data brokers. They are collecting, analyzing and packaging some of our most sensitive personal information and selling it as a commodity to government, to advertisers without our direct knowledge. (Kroft, 2014). The current advertising trend looks more like direct advertising. (Logan, 2010). The volume and the nature of the data that is being mined from our computers and mobile devices are beyond our imagination.

Few months back, until two weeks after doing the research on Dunkin’ Donuts, its ads kept popping up the moment I would open my browser. A few weeks after this, Banana Republic ads kept showing up because I had done some online shopping. Now I keep encountering the ads of the events, products, brands etc., the sites of which I visit on my browser. On one hand while I am really amazed by the fact that technology has really outgrown our lives, I am also disappointed by the fact that our privacy is being snatched without our knowledge and there is nothing we can do about it. It doesn’t really take much for one to open a website again. Then, why the need for the data brokers to steal our information and sell them to advertisers that too without our consent?

Ads seem to work on the very advanced principle that a small pellet or pattern in a noisy, redundant barrage of repetition will gradually assert itself. Ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion. They are quite in accord with the procedures of brainwashing. (McLuhan, 306). Nothing about advertising has changed even 50 years from the time this book, “Understanding Media’ was written. Several media came, emerged and evolved over time, but the element of ‘noise’ has remained intact. And, this is very evident in the way we are bombarded with ads on our computers and mobile phones. Every time I try to open and read a web page, my view is blocked by the sudden appearance of the ad, which covers almost 75% of the screen space. These ads are also called “floating” ads as they drift across the page or just hang in the middle of the page as an integral part of the web page. The worst part is being able to spot the little cross to close the ad and being able to tap exactly on that cross which is too tiny to be missed by the finger. Thus, eventually leaving one with little option but to view and read the ad. This tactic of advertisers is a forced one, the one that creates an un-demanded noise. In Logan’s words, advertisers are the predators and the users’ eyes are the prey.

Another unfortunate aspect of the new media is the invasion of Internet by advertisers via spam or unsolicited email ads. These ad mails clutter the mailboxes, which are supposed to be private spaces. Spam filters do not necessarily work in an effective way because they sometimes filter the genuine mails.

There is an iPhone app for coupons called ‘Snip Snap’, which I downloaded a month back. It is an app, where people upload the coupons they have and share it with people. So, for instance, if somebody wants to go shopping or go dinning somewhere, all they need to do is search for the coupons by typing the name of the place or the store. I happened to turn the location services on and now wherever I go, I am bombarded with the ads of the nearby stores and eating joints. The other day while passing by the Kohl’s store, Kohl’s 20% discount ad from Snip Snap popped up. At times when one really wants to shop, these ads prove helpful but when one doesn’t want to, these ads irritate the smartphone users. The most important thing that we have been ignoring till now is the realization how the data of our whereabouts reached these apps and websites?

The collection of the information in the form of name, address, and other personal details by the companies is not new. However, back then the amount of information we wanted to give out was solely up to us. We had control over how much we wanted the companies to know. But, today we no longer hold the power to withhold the information, no matter how personal it is. The information that we share online is being harvested, personalized and sold to advertisers. Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill says we have lost control of our most personal information. The dossiers about individuals are created by thousands of companies, including research firms, all sorts of Internet companies, advertisers, retailers and trade associations. The largest data broker is Acxiom, a marketing giant that brags it has, on an average, 1,500 pieces of information on more than 200 million Americans. (Kroft, 2014). This shocking amount of information about the likes, dislikes and preferences of Americans is then sold to advertisers who then target us on individual level.

Tim Sparapani, former privacy lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and Facebook’s first director of public policy, has been following the data broker industry for years. Currently an advisor at tech companies and app making companies, Sparapani feels people would be shocked to learn the kind of information being compiled about them and sold. The information and details about religion, ethnicity, political affiliations, user names, income, and family medical history might also end up in their profiles without our knowledge. It is easier for anyone to buy the data about people who are afflicted with a particular disease or medical condition. (Kroft, 2014).

Based on a series of other data points an individual buys and sells, the kind of clubs, bars and restaurants he visits, the purchases he makes from, the products he buys online, it is possible to even know the sexual orientation of the individual. All the information along with your name attached to it is sent to the prospective advertisers. “Statlistics”, a Connecticut based data broker firm advertises lists of gay and lesbian adults and response solutions – people suffering from bipolar disorder. Philadelphia based “Paramount Lists” provides the detailed data of people with alcohol, sexual and gambling addictions as well as details of people desperate to be free of debt. “Exact Data”, a Chicago company gives out the list of people afflicted with sexually transmitted disease, as well as lists of people who purchase adult material and sex toys. Any data becomes more valuable when married to personal information. “Take 5 Solutions”, a data broker in Florida runs 17 websites like “GoodParentingToday.com”, and “T5HealthyLiving.com”, where people can share stories about their families and their health. The idea that the web visitors are opaque to is that the business of “Take 5 Solutions” is to collect and sell people data. (Kroft, 2014). Our each step is monitored; our each move is saved in the memory of these data broker companies. These data when sold to advertisers help them target individuals in a personalized fashion, thus making them feel extremely valued. What the poor customers like us are unaware is how exposed we are today. These data brokers have actually ripped off the skin we live in, made us naked to the advertisers. These advertisers then try to dress us up with their product advertisements. Leaving aside the issue of breach of privacy, these personalized ads from the advertisers help us get rid of the unwanted products and services from undesired brands. Thus, we are only exposed to what we desire. Advertisers however, do go over the board by barraging us with the ads a little too much.

Digital privacy expert Ashkan Soltani exposed the invisible side of Internet using a software program called “Disconnect”, created by former Google engineer. He said that one thinks that one is alone when he is visiting a website, but the ugly truth is that he is not. For instance, when one visits the New York Times homepage, there are number companies on the page spying on his visits. This software helped reveal that there were more than a dozen third parties, all of who were allowed to track our movements on the NewYorkTimes.com site. Thus, whenever one visits any website, he is being followed by ad networks and marketing & analytics companies that either place their ads on the site or measure people’s behavior, and catalogue the visitor details. (Kroft, 2014). Just like the old times, whenever we visited any store, they would ask us to pen down our details, the companies these days do the same with our online web visits without our permission.

These data brokers collect the web browsing history of every individual. Hence, as one clicks through the web and visits sites, these third parties collect the click stream. The more the companies know about us, the more effective their advertising becomes. There is an online dating site called “OkCupid”, which asks its visitors questions pertaining to personal life. Questions about their eating preferences, their drinking habits, relationship with marijuana and other drugs etc., are asked. But, what one doesn’t realize is the presence of third parties spying on him, collecting all personal details. The site doesn’t require one to give their real name. But, the data brokers match the IP address and the computer ID number with other online identifiers. Thus, by simply combining this data with other data that is available, these data companies can identify the identity of the person. The site creators are really smart. They know nobody really reads terms and conditions. One has to scroll at least three pages down to the privacy policy, which reads, “You should appreciate that all information submitted on the website might potentially be publically accessible”.

Companies such as Datalogix, Acxiom, Epsilon, BlueKai, V12 Group track the spending habits of more than 110 million households using sources such as store loyalty cards. These companies create partnership with Twitter and Facebook to assess whether user group buys cooking gear or a brand of shampoo advertised on their social media pages. These companies can even determine who, after changing the Facebook status to single went to Ben & Jerry’s and got Chocolate Therapy ice cream. One could go on the company website and request to opt out, but it takes 30 days to process and each household member must opt out separately. TLO is a background research company that makes use of technology that scans and reads license plates collected by cameras mounted on parking lots, garages, roads, and bridges from coast to coast. Over a billion time-stamped reports containing photographs and specific locations of vehicles are collected by TLO and other similar companies and then marketed to law enforcement agencies, law firms and data brokers. (Liebelson, 2013). The option of opting out is not really available across all the sites.

An iPhone app by the name “Path Social”, whose actual purpose was to help people share pictures was caught sneaking into users’ digital address books and filching their contact information. This site actually downloaded the contact list off the people’s smartphones. The information gathered includes things like Facebook usernames, Twitter usernames, birth dates among several other things. The Federal Trade Commission has authority over data brokers. It fined the company $800,000 for deceptive trade practices. Commissioner Julie Brill is making efforts towards making practices fair and transparent. She says the information should be easy for the viewers to spot and that viewers should be able to challenge the companies if it is incorrect, and opt out of the system if they don’t want their private information being collected. The problem lies in the fact that customers have no clue of these companies in the first place, and even if they know they do not know how to report against them. To solve this problem, the Senate Commerce Committee and its chairman Jay Rockefeller proposed a law. After a month long investigation, they spotted the three biggest companies – Axciom, Epsilon and Experian. (Kroft, 2014).

Epsilon claims to have “the world’s largest co-operative database” including more than 8 billion consumer transactions, combined with an extensive network of online sources.

Last year when I had just arrived in US, I received a mail from Time Warner Cable, which read ‘Subscribe for Hindi channels’ and there were pictures of famous Hindi television shows. Hindi is the national language of India. I was stunned to know how this cable company came to know that I was an Indian. How exactly did it receive my address? Of course there is a possibility that it might have known of me being an Indian by my name, but my last name is not really common unlike other last names like Shah and Patel (People with last name Shah and Patel dominate Indian population in US). So, was it my use of YouTube for Hindi songs that was monitored, or was it the use of Netflix for Hindi movies or was it both? Right from my initial days, I felt breach of privacy. Being an advertising professional myself, I felt being entangled in my own net. I felt targeted, not necessarily in a good way. It does help advertisers to launch targeted ads, which are highly personalized and hence very effective. But, the cost is loss of privacy. In the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would be replaced by electronic media culture. In this new age, he said that humankind would move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a tribal base. McLuhan coined a new term for this social organization “Global village”. (Benson, 2014). He rightly put the aspects of village life in the modern world. Human proximity, nosiness, suspicion, and lack of privacy are some of the attributes that define village life. This trend reverses the development, in the industrial age, of anonymous, isolated, secretive city dwelling. Isolation or leading a private life has never been so rare for humans as it is in today’s new media age. As if social medias were not enough, we have data brokers going a step further by selling our private life to advertisers and making money.

The question remains what can common people like us whose privacy is at stake do? First and the most primary thing that any user could do is to implement number of technical measures to help protect their personal information online. In order to do this one could hide his/her IP address; encrypt data such as using Virtual Private Network such as Tunnel-Bear or HotspotShield. A VPN directs all traffic from the Internet user’s computer through an encrypted tunnel to the servers of the VPN provider, replacing the user’s IP address with that of VPN server. (Baylon, 2014).

The other way to secure your data search on computer is to use The Onion Router, also called TOR, which encrypts traffic that is sent from the user’s computer and routes it using a complex and random sequence of proxies to its final destination. This provides multiple protection against the traffic’s point of origin and the Internet user’s IP address. The option of removing or blocking tracking cookies provides added privacy protection. A browser called WhiteHat Aviator erases the Internet user’s computer cookies each time the browser is restarted. A browser extension called Disconnect helps the users to view the third party cookies on a website and stops them from installing. (Baylon, 2014). Another way to secure data is using Google Chrome. All one needs to do is browse “Incognito” and open a new Incognito window. The pages that one views in Incognito tabs do not stick around in the browser history, cookie store, or search history once the Incognito tabs are closed. Only the downloaded items and the bookmarks are saved. When one opts for Incognito, his browsing from his employer, Internet service provider or the websites he visits is not hidden. (Siciliano, 2014). All these options of masking our data seem quite appealing. But, hardly anyone is aware of these available options. Hence it becomes mandatory for the government to enforce stronger laws.

The US has taken its first step towards making this possible by proposing Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act. According to the bill, individuals would get the right to view the records that data brokers have collected, correct the wrong data, opt out of the practice altogether. However, securing the bill’s passage is a tough task as previous attempts at online privacy legislation have been stymied by influential lobbying groups. Europe has stronger data protection laws than US. It has employed an e-privacy directive, which requires websites to obtain an Internet user’s consent before installing cookies on their computer. (Baylon, 2014).

The CEO of Axciom, Scott Howe says that the industry isn’t used to being “consumer-facing”. He is taking the lead on making the industry more transparent and accountable to consumers. He has a vision of what the new proposition between consumer and data collection should be. He launched a portal for data correction or opting out of collection. Over half a million people visited the site. But, contrary to the prediction that there would be double-digit opt-out rates, only 2 percent people opted out. Eleven percent made changes in their data. The changes made by them were pertaining to political party, income and education. A lot of people wanted to share even more information about themselves. He predicts that in future instead of data being a good thing, it would be a great thing. In five years, people will manage their data as effortlessly as they manage maintenance to their house. On the Data Broker Transparency and Accountability Act, he states that the use of data for marketing could be restricted but not for things like employment screening, and credit underwriting. Heightened limitations on use of certain personal data can be practiced. (Bachman, 2014).

Bryan Kennedy of Epsilon states that he doesn’t see the need for more oversight or regulation. He says that if the abuses happen, there are little to no chances that they happen at Epsilon and if there are specific uses of data that are problematic, then the government should focus on those particular uses of data. Any attempt to regulate the entire industry would cripple the advertising economy of the country. Hence, even he like Axciom CEO Scott Howe believes that self-regulation is the key in this case.

While doing all this research on “Data Brokers”, I was surely spied on by them because after checking out few web pages, a cookie policy started popping out each time. One of them stated, “In order to deliver a personalized, responsive service and to improve the site, we remember and store information about how you use it. This is done using simple text files called cookies, which sit on your computer. By continuing to use this site and access its features, you are consenting to our use of cookies”. This proves how extensively our web pages are monitored and our preferences recorded. Advertisers have made the most out of this business using new media technology.

Advertising in India is still equally spread across the traditional media as well as new media. Mostly every household has access to Internet but not too many households have access to high-speed Internet owing to its extremely high rates. Having stayed in India and despite having used same smart phones and other smart devices, I have never felt this exposed. Government, to the best of my knowledge and research does not permit theft of personal data. However, the reasons could be different. India still has few years to reach where US is today. And, hence that distinction will always remain. But, sometimes it feels good to be not fully technologically developed. Sometimes, it feels good to lead a little passive life. Life is undoubtedly much easier and better here with easy access from smartphones but we are losing equally that much in return. The highly personalized nature of advertisements does make me happy but there can definitely be a better way to create these personalized ads. Like old times, simply penning down the information on a piece of paper while visiting a store makes more sense to me than be unclothed in front of these data breaking companies and advertising companies. After all, the way we lead our life, the choices we make, the places we visit are the only things that distinguish us from others. Then why, let ourselves be made easily accessible to these companies. Before the “Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act is put into act, much of the damage will already be done. All our information is already out there on the company servers and with the advertisers. Hence, it is now up to us how vigilant we are with respect to what we want to put up on Internet.

There are too many positives about new media such as smartphones but the single negative dwarfs all the good about new media. Hence, time wouldn’t be far when everybody would want to turn back to the passive media, which offered less interaction, and most importantly little or no tracking of our private lives. It is rightly said the more we progress, the more problems we face and in order to solve these problems we come up with yet another new. And, so this chain of “progress & problem” shall continue until we pause and step back instead of moving forward necessarily. Moving forward and coming up with a new technology is not necessarily always the solution.

Works Cited

Baylon, C. (2014). Big Brother is cashing in on you. World Today, 70(2), 18-20.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: the extensions of man ([1st ed.). : New American Library.

Logan, R. K. (2010). Understanding new media: extending Marshall McLuhan. New York: Peter Lang.

Levinson, P. (2009). New new media. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Kroft, S. (2014, March 9). The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information. CBSNews. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-data-brokers-selling-your-personal-information/

Liebelson, D. (2013, November 1). Meet the data brokers who sell your digital life. Mother Jones. Retrieved May 5, 2014, from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/data-mining-companies-sell-your-info

Siciliano, R. (2014, April 21). Data Brokers: What Are They; How to Get Control of Your Name. The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 6, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-siciliano/data-brokers-what-are-the_b_5185127.html

Bachman, K. (2014, March 25). Confessions of a Data Broker. AdWeek. Retrieved May 6, 2014, from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/confessions-data-broker-156437

Benson, P. (2014, March 1). Marshall McLuhan on the Mobile Phone. Philosophy Now. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://philosophynow.org/issues/87/Marshall_McLuhan_on_the_Mobile_Phone