For the most part I don’t find that Google ads are such a bad thing. They are relatively unobtrusive and they are generally based on such information as location and web history. Let’s leave alone the privacy implications of those two facts and look more at where I recently noticed that it falls short – although, I confess that this will lead to even more of a privacy nightmare for those who are a part of the tinfoil hat brigade.
It all begins with a sad story. You see, although I have purchased Windows 8, I have procrastinated about installing it and have stubbornly continued to run the Release Preview. Well, last night Microsoft reached out and touched my trusty laptop with an update that rendered the system unbootable. Despite several different approaches to fixing this I came up with no solution other than a re-install.
Don’t cry for me – everything is backed up with redundancy. This is more hassle than anything else.
A reinstall was the approach I took this morning, although it did provide me with the chance to finally move to the RTM. After finishing the setup I moved on to installing my usual apps like Chrome, Firefox, Office, 7-zip and a couple of others. The final step was my document backup which is stored on CrashPlan servers.
After visiting the CrashPlan site and initiating the restore I began browsing the web. What I found was that every site I visited that utilized Google Adsense was now displaying an ad for CrashPlan. Yes, they know my location and my browsing history, but what they don’t know, yet at least, is what services with which I already have an account.
That is the missing piece in this whole puzzle. Google earns nothing by displaying an ad that is rendered irrelevant because, already having the product or service, you have no reason to click.
So, how long before the search and advertising giant finds a way pull in this information as well? It’s certainly in their interest to display ads that make you want to click. It will happen at some point and it will certainly set off alarms with privacy advocates everywhere, but is it really such a bad thing to see something that is more relevant to you? That is the real question that needs to be debated here.
Image: Computer Security by BigStock
Alan, this already happens on Android to some extent. If you go into Settings and then Accounts, all accounts that have equivalent apps are listed. Google can see from that list that some of the services I use.