Behavioral ad targeting was sold as a clairvoyant valet ideally suited to customer needs
Evidence
The automation of customized advertising was intended, in theory, to present you with things more likely to seize your attention and make you click. It must be seen as a continuation of the search we have described for advertising’s Holy Grail: pitches so aptly keyed to one’s interests that they would be as welcome as morning sunshine. The idealists foresaw a day when ad platforms would be like a loyal valet who detected his master’s needs before he was aware of them, who suggested a new pair of shoes as a reasonably priced replacement for those you hadn’t noticed were wearing out. Perhaps he would remind you of your mother-in-law’s birthday while offering to send an appropriate gift at a one-day discount. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1080
Categorization
- XREF: The ‘Holy Grail’ of perfectly relevant ads connects to Wu’s earlier chapters on attention merchandising’s founding promise. — connects to: Personality-based behavioral targeting moved from elections to commercial sales after 2016. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 865; Behavioral data shifted from improving service to reading users’ minds for ad targeting. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 244; Behavioral ad targeting crossed Schmidt’s creepy line into exploiting targeted weaknesses — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1081 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Google’s early ad-matching patents replaced guesswork with predictive behavioral data
#corroborates(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 245 - Behavioral-prediction markets recruit merchants and insurers into the surveillance economy.
#expands(0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1083