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See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

nytimes.com

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Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#11

Post by dsmithatx »

tpowell wrote: post #10

Looks like you can opt-out here: http://att.com/cmpchoice "AT&T provides valuable insights to businesses without compromising consumer privacy. AT&T Data Patterns does not share individual data – only counts. For instance, a report might tell what percentage of passersby is males aged 20-30. Consumers are always able to opt-out of having their anonymous, aggregated information used at att.com/cmpchoice."

For others I found this page:

http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-at...

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#12

Post by sgarman »

jbob2000 wrote: post #8
y04nn wrote: post #4

The bad thing is that you're not aware that you're followed, and they don't even bother to ask your permission. At the scale of a shopping center it may be OK, but in your daily life it's frightening. ClearChannel has the power to know you better than your best friend.

It only shows you what you give it. The only thing Amazon sends me offers about are computer peripherals because that's all I've bought through them. And Facebook only shows me travel ads because I only post details about my vacations on there. And Google only shows me ads for web hosting because most of my email is about website development. None of these services know that I'm into hobby bonsai because I've never g…

If they see you walking into a bonsai store via billboard camera or track you walking in there via your ATT iPhone I never really "opted in" to giving them that information.

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#13

Post by [deleted] »

jbob2000 wrote: post #8
y04nn wrote: post #4

The bad thing is that you're not aware that you're followed, and they don't even bother to ask your permission. At the scale of a shopping center it may be OK, but in your daily life it's frightening. ClearChannel has the power to know you better than your best friend.

It only shows you what you give it. The only thing Amazon sends me offers about are computer peripherals because that's all I've bought through them. And Facebook only shows me travel ads because I only post details about my vacations on there. And Google only shows me ads for web hosting because most of my email is about website development. None of these services know that I'm into hobby bonsai because I've never g…

[deleted]

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#14

Post by cliffy »

jbob2000 wrote: post #8
y04nn wrote: post #4

The bad thing is that you're not aware that you're followed, and they don't even bother to ask your permission. At the scale of a shopping center it may be OK, but in your daily life it's frightening. ClearChannel has the power to know you better than your best friend.

It only shows you what you give it. The only thing Amazon sends me offers about are computer peripherals because that's all I've bought through them. And Facebook only shows me travel ads because I only post details about my vacations on there. And Google only shows me ads for web hosting because most of my email is about website development. None of these services know that I'm into hobby bonsai because I've never g…

Isn't it a bit naive to assume that companies don't share and aggregate data? Which internet search provider knows you're into hobby bonsai? You're 100% sure that data will never be shared?

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#15

Post by joesmo »

"But, he added, the company was using the same data that mobile advertisers have been using for years, and showing certain ads to a specific group of consumers was not a new idea."

No, that's a lie. GPS data is not available by default and can be controlled by the user. It's certainly not something that has been available for years to advertisers. It sounds like despite any permissions you may refuse in your OS/apps that AT&T will sell your data regardless (unless you opt out). Also, I know it's the NYT, but there's no such thing as anonymizing data. This has been shown over and over again that pretty much any data can be de-anonymized rather easily.

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#16

Post by Abundnce10 »

jbob2000 wrote: post #8
y04nn wrote: post #4

The bad thing is that you're not aware that you're followed, and they don't even bother to ask your permission. At the scale of a shopping center it may be OK, but in your daily life it's frightening. ClearChannel has the power to know you better than your best friend.

It only shows you what you give it. The only thing Amazon sends me offers about are computer peripherals because that's all I've bought through them. And Facebook only shows me travel ads because I only post details about my vacations on there. And Google only shows me ads for web hosting because most of my email is about website development. None of these services know that I'm into hobby bonsai because I've never g…

I don't believe this 100% true, unless you use an effective ad blocker. Data Management Platforms [0] (such as Krux, Bluekai, etc.) exist to keep track of the different sites you visit so that they can place you into various audience segments. It's unlikely they have a "bonsai" segment but you probably fall into a "gardener" segment, as the sites you visit to read about bonsai trees are most likely classified as a gardening website. Any site can signup with a DMP and offer advertisers the ability to target specific users (i.e. gardeners).

Advertisers are always looking for better ways to target a specific audience, publishers are looking for ways to charge higher CPMs, and DMPs are helping both achieve their goal while tracking you across numerous sites on the internet.

[0] http://digiday.com/platforms/what-is-a-dmp-data-management-p...

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#17

Post by typeiierror »

I work peripherally in this industry, so I can provide more context to the data used here; based on the press release[i], Clear Channel is using three different types of data for this:

1) AT&T cell tower data. All major US carriers collect aggregate movement data, and some have productized it (check out Grandata and Streetlight Data if you're interested). They're likely providing something like a persons count by daypart to Clear Channel at some geography, likely census block group. AT&T likely provides course demographics as well (either by purchasing them from a data broker like Experian or Epsilon) or by looking up the aggregate demo characteristics reported by the US Census for the block group of the subscribers household. As an aside, current gen (4G) cell tower data isn't very precise - maybe 100m accuracy or worse.

2) Placed opt in GPS panel data. There are many market research companies that pay consumer run location tracking apps (mFour and Instantly are other examples). Placed is probably the biggest (~1mm panelists).

3) PlaceIQ mobile ad server GPS data. PlaceIQ, xAd, Factual, Verve, Ninth Decimal...all of these companies read the lat / long coordinates provided by mobile SSPs in mobile RTB bid stream to create location segment profiles associated with your phone's Ad ID. The data isn't very accurate (mobile ad fraud is a problem...an app change the GPS coord from rural Kansas to downtown Manhattan to juice their CPM in an auction; also, most of the GPS used for buying mobile inventory is via "LastKnownLocation" apis which are notoriously inaccurate). These guys generally use their data to group your Ad ID into a segment (if they see you at a Wendy's, they'll sell your Ad ID to mobile RTB bidders as a "Frequent Wendy's eater"). Clear Channel is probably using this to see if exposure to a billboard caused you to make a purchase that they can attribute to your Ad ID (say via the advertisers CRM database), or to augment the demo data from AT&T with demo segments they can buy from mobile data exchanges.

[i]: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160229005959/en/Clea...

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#18

Post by [deleted] »

elorant wrote: post #2

So you block ads on your phone and next thing you know they're tracking you outdoors. Geez. We need some regulation pretty soon otherwise this whole situation will get out of hand. What if someone hacks into that billboard and routes the data elsewhere?

[deleted]

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#19

Post by hammock »

dsmithatx wrote: post #9

"has partnered with several companies, including AT&T, to track people’s travel patterns and behaviors through their mobile phones." Basically what I make of this is that cell phone companies (for sure AT&T) have already agreed to sell Clear Channel your location data. Do they already disseminate this information out to anyone who is willing to pay for it or is this new? Edit - I found they do and below are there are…

It's not new, and all the major wireless providers are in on it. To read more from the horse's mouth, check out [1] and [2] (Verizon). Not to mention many apps you have installed also sell your data - behavior, location, etc - to mobile ad networks. [3]

[1]http://precisionmarketinsights.com/

[2]http://www.verizonwireless.com/news/article/2013/05/precisio...

[3]http://www.conversantmedia.com/mobile-marketing-solution

Re: See That Billboard? It May See You, Too

#20

Post by RickS »

jbob2000 wrote: post #5

Somewhat related, but is there such a thing as "peak advertising"? Like, the point at which there is so much advertising that there is no more space to advertise on? Or we become so inundated by it that it ceases to have any affect on us at all?

> so much advertising that there is no more space to advertise on

Facebook didn't buy Oculus because they wanted to take fruit ninja to the next level...

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