Giving In To Creepy

Stalk Me

It's been nearly 15 years since "Minority Report", a dystopian sci-fi movie (is there any other kind?) that showed what personalized ads might look like on a biometric and personalized level. Well, if there were no boundaries to personal privacy, frequency control, and advertising was tied into a police state, rather than something that was tied to efficiency. Of course, you might already think we're in that dystopia, depending on your mood, and how often you wear tin foil on your head. But I digress.

As someone who has worked in adtech for most of my adult life, I can't tell you how much head shaking meh that movie has generated. Every time that automated technology has taken a tentative step forward -- adding first person names to email, dynamic elements in banners for e-commerce retargeting, swapping out ads in real-time bidding for more relevant work, upping the ante on offers to reactivate lapsed leads, and so on, and so on -- someone has inevitably brought up "Minority Report." Because adtech workers are still also consumers, and acutely aware of marketing in their own lives.

But the weird part of personalized adtech is how much we give a pass to other aspects of technology that are, well, far creepier than a more relevant banner. Every time you use a transponder in your car rather than interact with a person in a highway toll booth -- and the latter option is becoming nearly impossible, even if you'd like to take more time out of your day to be in the tourists only line -- you are giving up your exact location to an outside agency. The smartphone in your pocket could honestly double as an electronic ankle bracelet for people on parole. Depending on the age of your car, that's more tracking, and frequently it activates to alert you about service.

We have the tech to ensure that cars can't start unless the user can prove they are not inebriated, and if that tech becomes cheap enough, maybe it will be mandatory. That technology is racing the arrival of automated driving, which, given the public safety issues, might eventually lead to actually driving as a prohibited offense. (On the plus side, now everyone who wants to drink can. And we've also got a dramatically better world for the handicapped.) Something similar can be said about the transfer from analog to digital in medical records. And if you'd like to think negatively about any of that, to a world where everyone has to obey the speed limit at all times, has their medical information or credit history used against them in a linked buyer's profile, or has their food intake controlled (too many cheeseburgers this week, you're cut off), you can. The tech isn't good or bad; it just is.

The difference, of course, it that seeing the benefits of invasive tech advertising requires you to, well, work in advertising. Cut down on my time and costs at toll booths, and I'll let you monitor me. Smartphones are so useful, people get panicky if they are deprived of them for even a few minutes. No one wants to be misdiagnosed, or for their doctor to lack information. But no one believes that advertising has a similar benefit, or that the system would break if they somehow got their content without it.

But here's the thing... advertising actually *does* make your world better. It enables the production of expensive and beloved content, from high-end journalism to exceptional television, and if you want to live in a world where citizen journalists and user generated content take your media consumption from "Better Call Saul" and the New York Times to YouTube "stars" and whoever wants to write for free for the Huffington Post...

well, I'm sorry, but I'm not with you on the swap.

Because that's what at risk if cord-cutting and ad blockers achieve critical mass. An expansive and expensive increase on the audiences that remain, with a dramatically worse user experience.

So... who else is willing to put up with a little creepy?

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