People often ask privacy professionals how they lock down their PCs to prevent loss of their data, tracking etc, or whether they use Facebook, Twitter etc...well the truth is, privacy professionals tend to be quite selective on what they post, and in some cases, leave one or two browsers or PCs deliberately open for various reasons. One is to
game advertisers, or maybe to examine what advertisers and marketers are actually doing.
One thing I have noticed is that certain retailers, for example Gigantti of Finland comes to mind, obviously pass my purchase details on to some marketer/advertiser. I don't ever remember being asked to opt-out of this, but, I do now get adverts for the
things I've just bought. They could redirect their advertising budget and remove a few middle managers and save a pile of cash instead...
Then there's things like this:
I must admit I love these; I never click on them, but without such crap as this, the Internet would be a lot less fun...so let's start.
Top left...doctors are annoyed at a 53 yo mother because she's found a miracle cure to wrinkles. I'm actually more surprised that it isn't cosmetic companies who are annoyed - surely they're the ones who'll be put out of business. I think doctors (even cosmetic surgeons!) have much more important things to worry about. Then you have to ask,
"Who is this woman?" Surely if she's upset so many doctors and discovered a miracle cure for wrinkles why isn't she on magazines, TV or even
Oprah?!
Top middle...so women don't want other diets, just a pill that is exceptionally powerful. I guess this is some kind of diet pill and again I'm sure dieting companies would be more than interested in this, but...On the other hand I'm not sure that most women want to go from being normal and healthy to a misproportioned anorexic.
Top right...same again, except a selfie-obsessed, European looking blonde (so it isn't just asian women who know about this) receives a malformed, badly photoshopped lower body by using some secret Asian fat burning trick...
Bottom left...SIPOO?!?! If there are millionaires in
Sipoo with that kind of yacht then they're probably getting its wreckage salvaged from the islands in the archipelago after they've run aground. Monaco would have been better idea with that size of yacht and the climate better for all those trees and the swimming pool. Nice use of IP geo-location to personalise that advert to me;
almost had me fooled for a moment.
Bottom middle...I have those vegetables in my fridge: broccoli and coriander...sorry, kale and cilantro. Another interesting medical claim and I'm left wondering how those vegetables target those specific areas of your body and how this hasn't been discovered before given that we humans do eat quite a variety of vegetables. I wonder what would happen if you would dilute these vegetables in a big vat of water, shake it, dilute it again, shake it and so on until only a trace of the memory of the vegetables is left?
Bottom right...this is easy for a privacy professional, the EU have already come to your rescue with the
Right to be Forgotten. Though I guess if getting out of your Ferrari while posting for the waiting paparazzi is your thing, then the right to be forgotten is probably way down on your list of things to worry about. Unless of course there's that picture in Hello magazine of your looking frumpy and overweight...in which cases I can recommend a miracle pill and two vegetables to help, and if there's any left over skin after the diet, there's a 53yo mother you can talk to; assuming you can get past the rioting throngs of doctors baying for her blood...
Marketing and advertising with a touch of personalisation, the Internet wouldn't be the same without it :-)
