I was trying to post a comment to this story on Mediapost about newspapers arguing for behavioral targeting online, but it crapped out on me. So i figured I’d post it here:
I believe there should be more disclosure around BT. I also believe if done properly it can provide a lot of lift for advertisers and the ability for publishers to make more money and have a more sustainable business online. There are, however, double standards as applied to online advertising versus what happens in the offline world. When I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times (or most publications), they make money on selling my name and address (PII) and the fact that I’m a subscriber to various third parties. When I get one of these third-party direct mailings sent to me at home based on my address and data-matched to other information about me in various databases out there, I don’t get to find out who gave it up and how.
Consumers already ignore irrelevant mailings offline and irrelevant ads online, and with silicon being cheaper than paper and BT being non-PII, why do we devote so much more attention it seems to this online side of the equation and make it extra hard for the publishers to stay in business?
I did a quick search in Google news and found this headline, which caught my attention quickly as it could have a pejorative slant with respect to Chinese-made stuff (which I would suggest is totally wrong-headed considering the volume and diversity of stuff made in China, or in any country really):