Suppose you're shopping online for shoes.
Then, you decide to check a health site and you see an ad
for shoes. You switch over to YouTube to watch a hilarious kitten video, but
first you have to watch a shoe ad.
Later, you open the Facebook app on your phone.
And guess what? Sponsored post about a shoe sale!
How do all of these sites know that you're shopping for shoes?
Well, websites use various methods to track your browsing habits.
Each site may only gather a little bit of information, but
together, it forms a sort of digital profile
that advertisers can use to learn all kinds of things about you.
An advertiser can plant a small file on your computer called a tracking cookie,
which they can use to identify you the next time
you visit one of the sites they advertise on.
They can also get a pretty good idea of which
devices you use based on your social media and email accounts.
Or by using a technique called, "probabilistic matching", which makes educated
guesses about which devices belong to the same person.
So one way or another, all of your devices are connected to you.
And that means companies can send you targeted ads
no matter which device you're using.
This does raise some privacy concerns since the
information is collected without your knowledge.
And there is a fear about how this information could possibly be used.
For instance,
could an insurance company deny coverage
based on your browsing history?
You can steps to limit the amount of data collected,
such as blocking tracking cookies in your browser settings,
but with the current sophistication of tracking,
they're pretty easy to get around.
However, there are potential upsides to all this data being collected.
It allows sites to recommend articles and videos based on your interests.
And help search engines more quickly find the results you're looking for.
As the technology continues to advance,
sites will find new ways to tailor the content to better meet your needs.
It's hard to say exactly where this will lead, but for better or worse,
digital tracking is part of the modern online reality.
Goodwill Community Foundation--Creating Opportunities for a Better Life