Find out how website use advertising
On the internet it’s possible to get news, pictures, music, video and all kinds of other information legally and without having to pay for it.
This is made possible by advertising – for example, when you read an article on this website, it appears on your screen along with a couple of advertisements that help us to pay for the site.
With new technology, though, companies can monitor what people do online and send them advertising that is appropriate to them, based on their habits. This ‘behavioural advertising’ has caused a huge amount of controversy – but is it anything to be afraid of?
Everyone’s a winner The promise of behavioural advertising is that everybody wins. The advertisers get to show more appropriate adverts, so there’s a greater likelihood that they’ll be clicked, making them more effective. The websites stand to make more money from the adverts, which increases their profits. Internet users, meanwhile, don’t get bothered with adverts that aren’t relevant, instead receiving more useful offers and information as well as free access to the site.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) also stand to benefit. Some behavioural advertising systems, such as the Webwise system developed by Phorm, require special software or equipment to be installed at the ISP, allowing these companies to make money by striking deals with the advertising companies.
So if every party stands to gain from behavioural advertising, why has it caused so much controversy? There are two key issues that cause disagreement: whether users should be concerned about people keeping track of things they do online, and whether they have any choice in the matter.
Cookie monsters It’s important to note that the idea of websites tracking where you surf online is not new. For years websites have used a technology called cookies to keep track of what their users do. These can track how often you visit a site, or which pages you view, but they are normally limited to a single website or a group of sites owned by one company. They’re largely innocuous, although some security software will classify them as harmful and remove them, and it’s easy to delete or block any cookies you don’t want.
