Recently, Bell Canada has announced a new technology for advertising through “[using] information about its customers’ accounts and Internet use to target ads to them”. The information that will be retrieved from customers’ include “Internet activity from both mobile devices and computers, including Web pages customers have visited and search terms they have entered; customers’ location; use of apps and other device features; television viewing habits; and “calling patterns.” Account information shared will include product use including type of device, payment patterns, language preferences, postal codes, and demographic information.” All in all, this data will allow them to profile different types of customers and streamlining specific types of advertisements that will be relevant to the user. This proposal has been closely associated with the big network providers in the US such as Verizon and AT&T where they would also send targeted ads customers emails, texts or on-screen notifications on their mobile devices.
Although this can be perceived as a revolutionary improvement in advertising, this strategy has displeased privacy advocates and many customers.
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has announced that they will be investigating Bell’s new scheme of gathering customer data and information that is used for target advertising. They have also been receiving many complaints regarding this issue as it is a possible breach of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
General reaction from the public may seem very related to recent events, specifically the controversial leak of the NSA Surveillance Program by Edward Snowden where it details the PRISM program in which big companies like Google, Yahoo, Skype, Apple, Youtube, Facebook, and other major companies acted as a gateway for the government to access emails, photographs, and documents from billions of users.
The indiscriminate retrieval of user data is personally troubling. Having big companies possibly know your consumption habits, personal information, conversations, current location, all for the sake of targeted advertising may seem quite infinitesimal compared to its potential of complete government surveillance.
Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video
http://www.verizonwireless.com/news/2012/12/verizon-selects.html