Matthouse

Online ad tracking

Full disclosure:  I work for an advertising company, and have spent almost my entire career doing so.  With that said, nearly every product and technology I’ve ever worked on has been within the bounds of what I would call moral.

This article entitled “Ad targeting based on ISP tracking now in doubt” is one of those technologies that should never have existed in the first place.  The company partners up with ISP’s and, in exchange for a cut of the revenue, gets access to the users’ data stream, along with the oppertunity to inject their ads when they can.

I don’t have any problem with ad-supported services.  What I have a problem with is ad-supported services that aren’t free, or where the user doesn’t have any reason to believe the service is, or could be, ad-supported, or any way to opt out of the ads.  It’s like purchasing a brand new video game, only to find out that, in addition to taking your money for buying the game, they also force you to watch ads before you can play.

It should suprise nobody that a company like this isn’t faring so well now that large ISP’s are coming under scruteny from the FCC.