In what sounds a slightly creepy move , CBS is teaming up with a social networking site called Loopt which tracks whereabouts of families and friends of subscribers through a GPS system in order to send targeted ads to people , based on their current whereabouts and what they are likely to find useful , ad - wise , about their location !
A report in the New York Times characterizes this around advertisers wanting to be able to deliver really appropriate advertising that people will want and will not find intrusive .
Whether that is true or not , the reality of this is simply awful - You can be out wandering the streets , about to pass a Tommy Hilfiger store and you will receive an ad on your phone about the Tommy Hilfiger sale based on where you are and the fact that you have bought stuff there before.
This sort of profiling can be rationalized in lots of different ways -it remains deeply intrusive and unwarranted and should really have no place in a society - it also raises a fundamental question about the mobile internet and privacy and the ownership of information about people who use it.
What seems pretty clear is that the use of that information shouldn't just be left to commercial organisations who will have no qualms about exploiting it , quite how you protect the privacy issue seems much more difficult , but hugely important.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.