Stalked by digital ads: the New York Times shares a twinge of concern about improvements in targeted marketing. "Personalized retargeting or remarketing" leads to a fascinatingly posthuman experience, where desired objects pursue us.
...the writer Michael Learmonth described being stalked by a pair of pants he had considered buying on Zappos.
The Times article also has an interesting gender focus. Note the key role played by named women interviewees, and the emphasis on stereotypical, cliched women's purchases and concerns:
Bad as it was to be stalked by shoes, Ms. Matlin said that she felt even worse when she was hounded recently by ads for a dieting service she had used online. “They are still following me around, and it makes me feel fat,” she said. ...Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said she found the technique troubling. “I understand that advertising supports the Internet, but I am a little spooked out,” Ms. McCaskill said of behavioral targeting. “This is creepy.”
“What is the benefit of freaking customers out?” asks one interviewee. Good question, and one with metrics awaiting, if not already being totaled up.
(thanks to Ed Webb's mandatory Twitter stream; image from blakespot)
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