Thursday, February 26, 2015

Internet Tracking and Advertising



People are in control of their privacy. If they don’t want to give out their information they don’t have too. Some people may feel it is wrong that the internet is able to track what you do on the internet but they are doing no harm. They see what sites you visit then send you coupons or ads to convince you to get something. This is smart and helpful. Therefore they are able to target individual consumers more directly. I see this all the time. The other day I was looking at hats and then I went off the site, when I went to the different site for something else there was a little ad to the side for hats. This made me think of hats and put the idea back in my head. I do not see internet tracking in a harmful way but a positive way. Not all ads but most sell notions of “pleasure” that reflect harmful stereotypes and they will only continue to do this because it works.  Ads will continue to peruse the idea that if you by a certain product you will be happier, more fit and more outgoing. They will give you the idea of something that is not true at all. It happens all the time because people fall for these ads.  For example lots of Pepsi ads convey the message that if you drink Pepsi you will be happy and you will be skinny. This is wrong and I feel it would actually do the opposite. When you drink too much soda you can gain weight and feel sluggish and tired. To connect these two ideas when you see something you think you want you go out and buy it. If you slide a card or pay with something other than cash you can’t be 100% sure that your information is safe but that is taking your own risk. You are in control of everything you do.

4 comments:

  1. Commercials really don’t show beauty in a good light, everyone in them are always fairly attractive and look to be living great lives. It sets really high expectations that most people due to genetics can’t live up to, that probably why we have to import actors from Canada, Australia, and Europe to be in our movies. You’re also dead on with internet tracking being a good thing, and if people don’t like it they can always just ignore the ads.

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  2. I agree with what you are saying. Internet tacking is doing us no harm. The only information they get from us is what sites we visit online. We are the ones who are in control of our privacy because we are the one who give the information to them. All they do with the information is provide us with ad. If you don't like them then you don't have to pay attention to them.

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  3. When we compared the Axe ad and the Dove ad in class, we discussed the different approaches taken to sell these products. What they have in common is they sell us the idea we need to mask our smell. In the not too far past, people only bathed once a week. Some body order was acceptable. Now we have ads telling us to buy more personal cleaning products, we need to bathe at least once a day. This negative imaging advertising works, as a whole we perform very little physical labor and we are convinced we need to bathe every day compared to people that bathed once a week and their days were filled with physical labor.

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  4. This is interesting because I lean towards the side of internet tracking being more harmful than helpful. After reading you perspective about it and a few others that are for it, I'm slowly starting to realize that it isn't so bad. It makes perfect sense to do this to be helpful and kind of like a reminder and also, it works for companies. The economy needs companies to make good profit and use tactics that actually work to keep businesses going and at the end whatever they do we make the final decision.

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