Political campaigns' use of behavioral targeting technology, an effective but controversial online advertising tool, shows no sign of slowing down, despite pending privacy legislation in Congress and a new report showing public distrust of the practice.
Long used by online retailers and more recently taken up by political candidates, behavioral targeting lets Web sites put a small file known as a cookie onto every visitor's Web browser. With cookies aboard, campaigns can follow users around the Internet to figure out their likes and interests -- and target them with issue-specific ads.
Both presidential campaigns and at least nine Republican congressional candidates used behavioral targeting in 2008, the first election cycle in which political campaigns deployed the technology, and the practice shows no sign of slowing down. New Jersey gubernatorial hopeful Chris Christie (R) is using the technology on his site, as is Rep. Jim Gerlach, who is vying for the GOP's nomination in the 2010 Pennsylvania governor's race.
If you go to Christie's campaign site, for example, and read about his stance on taxes, the next time you browse a related story online -- like a Wall Street Journal article on tax policy -- his campaign can target you with a banner ad touting his support for tax cuts.
"Everything we did in '08 we can now do better faster and cheaper," said Richard Masterson, chairman of CampaignGrid, the Pennsylvania-based online ad agency running Christie's and Gerlach's targeting efforts. "I think in the midterm elections you're going to see an absolute explosion."
Masterson said his firm is in talks with a number of 2010 and 2012 candidates eager to jump on the targeting bandwagon.
But will voters object to tech-savvy politicians putting them in their digital crosshairs? Online advertisers have long argued that consumers enjoy getting targeted ads matched to their interests, but a new study from the University of Pennsylvania says the opposite. The survey, released Sept. 30, reports that 73 percent of Americans object to the kind of tailored advertising that Christie, Gerlach and others are doing.
Congress has been concerned about behavioral targeting since at least last year, when Senate and House committees held hearings to investigate privacy concerns surrounding the technology. Now Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., is preparing to introduce legislation that would require Web sites to disclose their tracking programs and let users opt out. Boucher, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, isn't opposed to targeted advertising, noting that it helps make online content free, nor is he opposed to political campaigns using the technology.
"I think that's fine, as long as whoever is serving those ads has a privacy policy that provides opt-out opportunities," he said.
But campaigns have a mixed track record on privacy disclosure. The Christie campaign has a robust privacy page and an opt-out button on its site. The Gerlach camp didn't upload its own privacy page until receiving inquiries from NationalJournal.com. Similarly, last fall, the congressman's office added details about its use of cookies to his privacy policy only after being contacted by this Web site.
As effective as behavioral targeting can be in matching ads to voters, candidates are just scratching the surface of the tool's potential, argued Joseph Turow, a communication professor at the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the study. The kind of targeting CampaignGrid is doing is relatively innocuous because it is anonymous. But if campaigns follow the lead of online advertisers and start buying demographic, psychological and socioeconomic information from professional marketers to target individuals better, that could raise eyebrows.
"If I were going to a candidate's Web site and gave my name, and I found out that the campaign went ahead and bought information about me, bought psycho-demographic information about me, I would be very annoyed," Turow said. "My own personal opinion is that people would have a bigger problem with politicians than businesses."
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