Tag Archives: Facebook

How badly targeted “personalized” ads can be

Picture by geralt on Pixabay

One of the main reasons – and quite possibly thé main reason – why the big platform players, such as Facebook, Google and Amazon are collecting data by the bucket load on everyone (obviously including you, dear reader) using their platforms, product and services is the belief that this enables them to serve “better” a.k.a. “more personalized” ads, and thereby deliver you a better user experience.

An important element during this data collection effort is keeping track of all the websites you have visited, the underlying logic being “if you have visited that website, it is very likely that you Continue reading →

If you’re not paying, you are the product*

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It’s often claimed that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but still – espcially and increasingly in this digital age – we are daily using en masse products and services that we consider to be free. Or at least where we don’t have to part with some of our dearly beloved money in exchange for the right to use those products or services. Some examples from the digital world include social media, like Facebook and Twitter; e-mail services, like Gmail or Hotmail (yes, I know, the consumer version is also called Outlook now, but everyone still refers to it as Hotmail); free antivirus; free search engines, like Bing or of course Google; free return shipments for online orders; free wifi in hotels, bars, etc.