Ad targeting improves as Web sites track consumer habits

[TheLegacy]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/12/02/t....ap/index.html

Elsewhere, online hangout Facebook is mining friends' buying habits, and major Internet portals have bought companies to expand their reach and capabilities for "behavioral targeting" -- all so advertisers can try to hit you with what they believe you're most likely to buy, even as doing so means amassing more data on you.

"When you are online today, you've been labeled and tagged as this type of consumer in milliseconds," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "All of a sudden you are exposed to a vast number of invisible salespeople who are peering over your personal details to figure out the best way to sell to you."

Behavioral targeting, commonly accomplished by depositing tiny data files on personal computers to keep track of surfing patterns, has raised privacy questions and, at least in the case of Facebook, user complaints.

From the perspective of Web sites and advertisers, though, behavioral targeting can bring to the rest of the Internet some of the relevancy Google Inc. and others successfully mined for billions of dollars with text-based search ads.

"Everyone's trying to find the next, best mousetrap to compete with search," said Adam Broitman, director of emerging and creative strategies with ad agency Morpheus Media LLC.

Although behavioral targeting isn't right for all advertisers, it has become increasingly important as companies try to break through the clutter. The research company eMarketer projects that spending on behavioral targeting will nearly double to $1 billion next year and hit $3.8 billion by 2011.

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