Mackenzie Beth Leary Graphic Design

Word Count - 7994 2014 January

From a Consumers Perspective, Does Online Behavioural Advertising Blur the Line Between Useful and Ethical Practice?

Chelsea College of Art LEA10290630

Dissertation Tutor Sakis

Contents

Introduction Denitions Ethical Useful What is Online Behavioural Advertising? How Can OBA Be Useful for the Consumer? Demassication Re-Targeting Chunking & the Subconscious Life Stage Targeting

4 6 7 8 10 11 14 15 16 18

Competitive Necessity Ethical and Moral Issues Big Brother is Watching You' Limited Independent Thought Consumer Privacy Electronic Shadow Survey Results Consumer Opinions Conclusion Image Source List Glossary of OBA Key Terms References Bibliography Designing to Confuse The Quantied Self Pregnancy Prediction

20 22 23 24 25 26 28 32 36 38 40 41 42 45

I am haunted by the girl who summed up her reaction to losing online privacy by asking, Who would care about me and my little life?
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together (2012 P263)

Introduction

The ultimate purpose in studying ethics is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of theoretical knowledge, we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, else there would be no advantage in studying it (Aristotle)

Within Privacy Policy pages for companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple, they repeatedly use the term useful when explaining how online behavioral advertising (OBA) and cookie collection benets the consumer. Amazon states that this practice allows them to provide consumers with more useful advertisements. Google also says it helps consumers decipher which ads youll nd most useful and lastly Apple says it provides a more useful shopping experience. The treatment of the word useful is vague and unclear in explaining what they see as the benet to the consumer. Terms such as useful, relevant and benecial are scattered over Terms & Conditions, news articles and pro-advertising blogs when describing OBA. In this dissertation I review whether companies like these, are using the term useful in the broadest sense because they cannot dene what it is exactly that consumers are beneting from. I analyse whether the practice of OBA is only benecial to the companies themselves, therefore creating an un-ethical and imbalanced system where consumers are exploited.

Ethics is a complex topic to discuss in terms of what is morally right within the practice of OBA. It is unachievable for me to reach a watertight decision on whether or not OBA is an ethical or un-ethical practice because it is a subject that holds different values and opinions to various individuals. However, I do question the practice of OBA from a consumers perspective and debate whether OBA follows ethical guidelines. Furthermore, as Aristotle explains in the opening quote, we study ethics in order to become good. My decision to study this topic stems from my interest in ethical design and aims to help me start off my creative career with a grounding of basic ethical beliefs and a moral code that will remain with me in the future.

My research will take several different routes that will be cross-examined and intertwined throughout. To build a historical context, the works of George Orwell (1949), John Chaffee (1985) and Judith Williamson (1978) will be explored, as the work of all three authors can be applied to the eld of OBA. Orwell warns of omnipresent surveillance and limits to independent thought in his novel 1984. Chaffee refers to demassication; the rise in personalised methods of communication over the last decade and Williamson scrutinises advertising from a theoretical perspective. Additionally, to gain a contemporary understanding of the technology, opinions and theories surrounding OBA, I use news articles, blogs, documentary lm, and radio podcasts as well as looking at relevant Terms and Conditions pages of on-line companies; this is to give me an insight into the current information that surrounds OBA.

Lastly, a large part of my investigation into whether or not OBA blurs the line between useful and ethical practice, looks at consumers opinions and feelings towards the targeting. To discover these sentiments, I conducted an online survey that was sent to sixty people of all age, gender and interests and asked them multiple-choice questions and provided comment boxes.

Denitions

According to the Collins Dictionary: ethical; 1. 2. 3. (functioning as singular) the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy. (functioning as plural) a social, religious, or civil code of behaviour considered correct, esp. that of a particular group, profession, or individual. (functioning as plural) the moral tness of a decision, course of action, etc - he doubted the ethics of their verdict.

Oxford Dictionary Online:

Schools of ethics in Western Philosophy can be divided, very roughly, into three sorts. The rst, drawing on the work of Aristotle, holds that the virtues (such as justice, charity, and generosity) are dispositions to act in ways that benet both the person possessing them and that persons society. The second, defended particularly by Kant, makes the concept of duty central to morality: humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. Thirdly, utilitarianism asserts that the guiding principle of conduct should be the greatest happiness or benet of the greatest number.

Denitions

According to the Collins Dictionary: useful; 1. able to be used advantageously, benecially, or for several purposes; helpful or serviceable. 2. (informal) commendable or capable a useful term's work.

Oxford Dictionary Online:

1. able to be used for a practical purpose or in several ways: aspirins are useful for headaches. 2. British informal very able or competent in a particular area: a useful pace bowler.

What is Online Behavioural Advertising?

OBA is the practice of collecting information from web browsers so that it can be used to present online advertisements that are more relevant to the user of a particular computer. (Advertising Standards Authority, undated. Viewed 2013)

Consumers are regularly targeted online with advertisements that are more relevant to them based on many different types of information. The user may have willingly provided this data through ways such as terms and conditions accepted through websites, online payment, social media sites or loyalty cards. Tescos loyalty club card, which was introduced in the mid 90s, was one of the rst companies to access large amounts of information on consumer habits and behaviours. Companies also use sophisticated tracking such as third-party cookies that feed information back about what the user has clicked, visited or purchased.

Every time you click a link, ll out a form or visit a website, advertisers are working to collect personal information about you. (Turow, 2012)

The increase in the accessibility and availability of the Internet has led to a huge rise in numbers of online shoppers. As a result of this we are now living in a digital era where advertising has been transformed, edging further away from mass communication and towards more targeted personal methods. The growth of online advertising has been exponential. According to the BBC, web advertising costs topped $100 billion last year and digital now commands one in ve of all advertisement dollars (BBC, 2013). Additionally, there has been a huge rise in numbers of people with smart phones, SAS reported online that More than 5 billion people are calling, texting, tweeting and browsing websites on mobile phones. (SAS, undated, viewed 2012). They go on to say that Facebook has more than 1.15 billion active users generating social interaction data. With all of this incoming data, it is unsurprising that OBA has developed so much in the last decade. Ad Age online reported that the number of third-party cookies, rose from 1,887 on the home pages of the most-popular 100 websites in May to 2,324 in October (Kaye, 2012) making this an increase of 23%. 8

Online behavioural advertising is not an entirely new entity however; it was originally introduced in 1995 when the practice of cookie collection was constructed. Similarly, behaviour prediction is not entirely modern either; as Eric Siegel explains, in World War II. Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, began trying to predict the behaviour of German airplane pilots in 1940 with the goal of shooting them from the sky (Siegel, 2012, P13 of foreword). As humans we have always been fascinated in behavioural patterns, habits and being able to predict them in order to ght disease, crime, increase sales and win votes. Predictive analytics has consequently provided the technology for this to happen in the world of advertising as well.

How can Online Behavioural Advertising be Useful for the Consumer?

As previously concluded, companies such as Amazon, Apple and Google repeatedly use the term useful in their Privacy Policies, when justifying how the practice of OBA benets the consumer. (See Figure 1, 2 & 3)

Figure 1 - Amazon Privacy Policy

Figure 2 - Apple Privacy Policy

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Figure 3 - Google Privacy Policy

When questioning whether OBA blurs the line between useful and ethical practice, it is important to try and pin down exactly what companies like these mean when they use the term useful and whether or not OBA provides any true benet for consumers and how this is achieved. As stated earlier, the term useful is dened as:

able to be used advantageously, benecially, or for several purposes; helpful or serviceable (Collins Dictionary)

In order for OBA to be useful it will need to comply with the above denition. In this chapter I look at the ways that OBA could possibly be seen in achieving these requirements.

Demassication

(The) Fundamentals of mass communication are not as true today as they once were, and this is due to the emergence of new media for human communication. In short, the argument to be made is that contemporary media are demassifying mass communication. Some examples of todays new demassifying technologies include handheld devices such as cell phones or video games, but most important, Internet based communication, including e-mail and the World Wide

Web. (Chaffee, P369, 2001)

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As Chaffee explains in this quote, we are no longing living in an age of mass communication where everyone is being purely exposed to the same advertising content through traditional mediums such as TV commercials, magazines and billboards. There are many reasons to explain why more personal methods of targeting consumers are being used. One of these reasons is because it is assumed that we all have different interests and beliefs, making it impractical for a child to be shown the same content as an elderly person, as they would most likely have different product desires. This example, where age selects advertising content could be seen as useful in the sense that it is suggesting appropriate products to consumers that others have used at this particular point in their life. Therefore demographically it is likely that the consumer will nd some use or desire for the product. For example, if a retailer such as Amazon used a teenagers age, they could target products such as GCSE help books or revision guides that would have more pertinence for the consumer. However, assumption of consumer product desires can become a problem, because it generates stereotypes and could lead to repetitive content that limits the mind. I explore this theory in more depth later on.

Demassication is also a result of the advance in technology, resulting in most people owning their own smart phone, laptop or tablet. It is less common these days for a family to be sharing one electronic device like they would have ten years ago. Instead it is likely that each person will have their own, therefore making OBA more efficient in who and what it is targeting. For part of my primary research, my survey showed that; 88% owned an individual laptop, 75% a smart phone and 40% a tablet. These ndings demonstrate the immense opportunity for companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple to target their consumers on a one-to-one basis. However, this assumes that everyone will just use their own device where in a family often these devices do get passed around. A response from my survey showed that this is often the case and it can become disadvantageous, leading consumers to avoid using specic websites. One response stated Its very annoying during Christmas and Birthdays, because my husband can see what I have been looking at. (Leary, M. 2013)

There have been many contemporary product designs that explore this idea of demassication, by using design to increase the relevance of advertising content for the individual. This recent development could suggest that demassication is becoming a popular topic for designers to explore. For part of an exhibition titled The Future is Here from The London Design Museum, the TV controller titled Nebo Object #2 (Thwaites, 2013b) was featured (See Figure 4 & 5). 12

The design plugs into your television to nd out what inuences youre currently seeing, and will intervene as necessary. It then alters the meaning of the advertisements by only showing content that is relevant or of interest to you. This design again assumes that only one individual will be watching the television at a given time, which possibly makes it less effective because watching television is something that is often done with others. The fact that it was featured in the Design Museums futuristic exhibition could suggest that this is something which will be used regularly in the future; where consumers are able to control the content shown through their technological devices. Nebo Object #2 can be turned off and on whenever the individual feels inclined to use it; this puts the power into the consumers hands. This ability for consumers to control their content makes it a more useful tool than when companies use OBA online as it can be used as an empowering tool that can be turned off and on whenever the consumer feels necessary.

Figure 4 - Nebo Object #2 by Thomas Thwaites

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Figure 5 - Nebo Object #2 by Thomas Thwaites

Re-Targeting

One of OBAs main methods of targeting consumers is a practice called re-targeting; where products that have been looked at and not resulted in a purchase are later advertised to the consumer. When companies use the term useful, it could be argued that consumers should look at OBA as analogous to the sort of personal service a customer would receive when they walk into a physical store. Sales assistants offer help and provide suggestions that we can choose to accept or ignore, but their role is also to provide a more pleasant and convenient shopping experience for the consumer, by helping them nd something in the store or suggesting a similar option, which in most cases is often very useful. Perhaps OBA is the natural progression of creating an online helping hand or suggestive platform that aims to create a more practical and useful shopping/online experience. However when I invited people to share opinions about OBA within my survey, some revealed that unlike sales assistants, OBA does not give the consumer an option to ignore the ads: You should be able to say no, I am only looking/browsing when a product is of no relevance. Similar to a sales assistant. Another source describeda OBA as Fine in moderation, but it can feel like the virtual equivalent of a pushy sales assistant. (Leary, M. 2013)

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Chunking & The Subconscious

Having advertisements targeted at consumers, based on their personal data could be argued to be useful for the consumer in the society we live in today; work hours have increased and people are retiring later in life and therefore have less free time. Charles Duhigg, a reporter for the New York Times explains a process where the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine, called Chunking (C, Duhigg, 2012a, P17). Some examples of chunking are everyday tasks such as brushing your teeth or pouring milk onto your cereal. Duhigg explains that, Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. (2012a ,P17-18) Therefore, as humans we are subconsciously looking to save energy by condensing tasks into much simpler thought processes and seeking time saving methods. Therefore useful in terms of OBA could mean this; if subconsciously we are looking to save time, then companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google etc. are acting as a human brain by converting our searches into chunking movements, by cutting out the need for us as consumers to spend time and attention searching for the product or offer ourselves. For example, going through a life change such as a pregnancy, your body will be exhausted and looking for time-saving ways of purchasing required items, a system that suggests these products before you know that you need them could be seen as useful.

Walking around a large store looking for a particular item can be a long and tedious task, when we nd that particular item we get a sense of reward and happiness that differs depending on how long it took you to nd that particular thing. Here is an example; you knew you wanted a particular blouse in a large department store and as soon as you walked in you found it straight away, the reward would be much greater than spending an hour looking for it then eventually nding it. When we search for a particular item online and there is no purchase at the end of the search, it is likely that re-targeting will occur for a week or so afterwards. The result of this could be that the advertisements have saved you time in nding a particular item and cut out effort you would have spent searching websites comparing reviews and prices. Gokul Rajaram, director of advertising at Facebook, explains in an interview for the New York Times, Its ultimately good for the usersThey get to see better, more relevant ads from brands and businesses they care about and that they have a prior relationship with. (Sengupta, 2013) A response through my survey agrees with this: Its useful 15

to the extent that if youre actually interested in buying something and cant nd it, that it could potentially help you. However another argues: Im quite good at buying stuff online by myself without the help of advertising... I like having control of what is being advertised to me, for example, I follow certain brand that I like on Instagram. (Leary, M. 2013)

Life Stage Targeting

Another opinion from my survey takes a different view of how OBA may be useful:

Life stage stuff is slightly different, because you want to absorb as much as you can. It could be useful for life stages; you want those offers and deals so you tend to tell those companies about this big lifestyle change. (Leary, M. 2013)

This idea that OBA could be helpful during life changes by saving consumer time seems increasingly relevant however, the debate often looks at the intrusiveness of companies targeting pregnant women as new parents are a retailers holy grail as Duhigg states in his article for the New York Times (Duhigg, 2012b). Duhigg explains how an American father found himself in an uncomfortable position when discovering that his teenage daughter, was being advertised vouchers for pregnancy related products by leading US department store Target. He went into a store near Minneapolis to complain to the manager but later had to apologise to the company when he found out that they had predicted correctly and his daughter was in fact pregnant. He wrote It turns out theres been some activities in my house I havent been completely aware of. Shes due in August. I owe you an apology. (Duhigg, 2012b) This story, which attracted much press attention in the USA, demonstrates that OBA in this case, has blurred the line between useful and ethical practice, by revealing a young womens personal life.

Eric Seigel, Founding Chair of Predictive & Text Analytics World states that the NYTs article conveys a tone that implies wrongdoing is a foregone conclusion. He goes on to say that The Times even produced a small video to go with the article, which features dramatic, slow-motion, colour-muted images of Target shoppers checking out, while creepy, suspenseful music plays. (Siegel, 2012, P40). 16

Seigel implies that The New York Times and The Times were dramatising this story into a piece of propaganda that could be used to back up peoples conceived negative perceptions on the subject of OBA, possibly to sell stories and create a frenzy around the subject. As a society we are perhaps programmed by the media to be suspicious about how we dispatch our personal information and protect our privacy online. It is interesting to think that if the teenager in the article were a thirty-something year old woman, then the amount of coverage would have been much less. People would probably be looking at the situation in a very different way, not debating Targets possible use of unethical practice. It is easy for people to be given a biased impression by reading this story and it was a perfect opportunity for the media to scare consumers about this form of advertising in an unbalanced way, drawing away from its useful qualities and instead focusing on the ethical issues.

Figure 6 - New York Times 17th February 2012

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Competitive Necessity

Facebook is a key player in the world of OBA and the site is leading the way forward in the change for other large companies. In Terms & Conditions May Apply (Hoback, 2013), a documentary examining privacy issues, Mark Zuckerberg explained Doing a privacy change for fty million users is not the type of thing a lot of companies would do. We decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it. The reasons for this change in their privacy policy could be due to the drop of Facebooks share value. The New York Times reported that Its shares are worth far less than its ambitious initial public offering price of $38 a share last May. (Sengupta, 2013) As a result of this, in February 2013 Facebook announced its plans to push advertising to individuals on a personal basis and reported its partnerships with companies that collect lucrative behavioural data, from store loyalty card transactions and customer e-mail lists (Sengupta, 2013). Product Director for advertising at Facebook, Gokul Rajaram said in an interview Our goal is to improve the relevance of ads people see on Facebook and the efficacy of marketing campaigns. (Sengupta, 2013)

Facebooks sudden drive to push targeted advertising may reect their loss in prots but it is also interesting to see how other companies continue to follow in Facebooks footsteps. Google were a leading company that set the trend in privacy alterations. The documentary Terms & Conditions May Apply explains that In January 2012, Google made changes to their privacy policy. Google combined all of the information any of their services had collected about a person and put them into one single prole. (Hoback, 2013) Additionally, it has been reported that Google ads will now appear in its Maps app after a user performs a search. (Hoback, 2013) These changes in privacy obviously provide a use for companies, by facilitating more powerful manipulation of consolidated data sets. However, it is questionable and unlikely that this privacy change has any additional use to the consumer. As technology becomes more ubiquitous, and things like tables, walls, fridges and other surfaces, objects and devices become interactive, connected and locatable - and possibly even aware of other devices and people around them - advertising will become even more personalised, contextual, relevant and useful. It will have to do this to succeed. (BBC, Hart, 2012)

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OBA may be the only way to survive in todays competitive online climate. Mass communication is becoming less popular with advertising companies, as they turn to the more cost effective techniques of OBA. It is undisputable that advertising has to develop at the same pace in order to keep up with technology and the increased numbers of online shoppers. Companies such as Facebook also have to learn and develop their advertising technology quickly in order to stay current and popular. Mr Rajaram says consumers get to see better, more relevant ads from brands and businesses they care about and that they have a prior relationship with. (Sengupta, 2013) From a consumers perspective however, this may mean that desires are being limited through the subliminal boundaries that are presented through OBA, and they could be creating a false need for something that does not exist. If a consumer wanted to shop at a specic store, then they would do so. As Eric Picard from AdExchanger says:

Ill argue that virtually no company that tracks consumer behaviour across multiple sites actually provides consumers with recognizable value. (Picard, 2011)

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Ethical and Moral Issues

When it is done without the knowledge of users, it may be considered a breach of browser security and illegal by many countries privacy, data protection and consumer protection laws. (Wikipedia on OBA)

As referred to earlier, Kantians theory elucidates ethics as respecting other rational beings (Oxford Dictionary). When studying ethics within OBA, I examine whether companies are exploiting the term useful in relation to consumers, but in reality it could be that the only use within OBA is for companies; leading to an imbalanced system where consequently the boundaries between useful and ethical practice are blurred.

Big Brother is watching you

George Orwells 1984 depicted a vision of a Big Brother world where the Thought Police were watching societys every move; At any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. (Orwell, 1949, P5) Orwell conjures up a world where the government has complete power and ability to control the minds and bodies of individuals within society; through telescreens, hidden microphones and cameras. This projection where society is watched and controlled through the technology of the telescreen (P7) could be argued to be plausible in todays society through possible unethical treatment of privacy by companies.

In Terms & Conditions May Apply, (Hoback, 2013) a conversation explaining how easy it is to access information (See Figure 7) sounds increasingly familiar to the wire that Orwell talks about:

Is It hard to go through and actually nd specic details about a person? No, thats super easy. Within a couple of minutes you can gure out what people voted for, what psychological problems they have, what parties theyve been to.

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Figure 7 - Terms & Conditions May Apply (2013)

Within the lm, Zeynep Tufekci, Professor of Sociology at the University of Baltimore states;

What if your phone came with these long terms and conditions that said if you use your phone, the government can wire tap you. That would be insane. But thats the kind of world were living in. (Hoback, 2013)

As well as conversations and data being tracked, there are other themes within Orwells 1984 dystopian vision that are familiar in todays society. Orwell writes about the lack of privacy in purchases, where every purchase was recorded and fed back to the thought police; similar to todays supermarkets use of loyalty cards to track consumers purchases. Additionally, 1984 details how the party barraged civilians with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the minds capacity for independent thought. (Spark Notes, undated, viewed 2013) Telescreens had webcams installed to implant messages into individuals minds by recording actions and pushing propaganda.

Although this is at the extreme end of the spectrum, the notion of controlling individuals minds by limiting independent thinking through controlled content, demonstrates the scope for unethical treatment of consumer privacy and respect.

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Limited Independent Thought

Whats really going on with behavioral advertising is really against what people want, Turow said. People want control and dont want to feel that theyve been pushed in a certain direction (Bachman, 2013)

Suggestion devices such as Amazons recommended on your browsing history seen in Figure 8 and YouTubes Suggestion box come into question when discussing whether this type of content is essentially positive for the consumer. It allows individuals to discover content that is similar to what they have searched before; therefore they are more likely to be interested in it. However, it may also be negative in the sense that it restricts individuals by repeatedly showing similar subjects and therefore limiting the expenditure of mind and desire.

Figure 8 - Amazons Suggestion Box

Do we want people to be in their own bubble of opinions being reinforced because they only ever see what they want to see? Or should there be a moral dimensions to those algorithms? (Thwaites, 2013a)

The same thing is happening with OBA, if people are only being shown advertisements that are assumed of interest to them, then it prevents people learning about new products, new brands 22

and technologies that will be shown to others; therefore reinforcing their own bubble of opinions. Companies cannot assume that consumers want to be shown advertisements from businesses they care about and that they have a prior relationship with (Sengupta, 2013) merely because they have shopped their previously. At this point when companies are creating assumptions based on individuals data and therefore limiting desire and change, the boundaries between useful and ethical practice are beginning to be blurred.

Consumer Privacy

Privacy has well served our modern notions of intimacy and democracy. Without privacy, the borders of intimacy blur. (Turkle, P261)

Within my survey, I discovered that 53% of people were aware of devices such as ad blocker, incognito mode or cookie destroying devices that stop companies from collecting data and block advertisements. Yet only 18% of these people use such devices. It is interesting to consider why people do not download these. The reason may simply be that people are aware that programmes like this exist but do not know how to implement them.

However there could be a more complex reason as to why people do not avoid advertisements: perhaps they intrigue them similar to Williamson. I knew I was being exploited, but it was a fact that I was attracted. Feelings (ideology), lag behind knowledge (science). (Williamson, 1978, P9)

Advertising can provide a sense of comfort for many; people may see their exposure to advertisements as a sense of belonging or inclusivity from the knowledge that they are being shown similar content to others. Some are even gratied by a certain public exposure; it feels like validation, not violation. Being seen means that they are not insignicant or alone. (Turkle, 2012, P263) 23

It is at this point that OBA also appears to have the capability to exploit vulnerable or nave individuals in society. This is done by providing a false sense of belonging and social acceptance, therefore blurring the boundaries between useful and ethical practice. By creating these personalised advertisements, individuals may be falsely informed and gratied of the attention; seeing it to be helpful when actually it is the companies that are beneting from the exchange. My survey showed that 55% of people agreed with the above statement from Turkle. It is these vulnerable individuals that may be at most risk.

I am haunted by the girl who summed up her reaction to losing online privacy by asking, Who would care about me and my little life? (Turkle, 2012, P263)

Electronic Shadow

Turkles Alone Together explores the idea of the shadow that privacy casts on all of those that freely give away information by leaving electronic traces everywhere they go. Turkle argues that for people that spend a lot of time on social media sites, emails and messaging, they are creating a shadow that will follow them for the rest of their lives:

Peter Pan, who could not see his shadow, was the boy who never grew up. Most of us are like him Living with an electronic shadow begins to feel so natural that the shadow seems to disappear that is, until a moment of crisis: a lawsuit, a scandal, an investigation. (Turkle, 2012, P260)

When thinking about providing companies with personal information, it seems like a reasonable request in exchange for a free app, prole or download. However, Siegel states the average users value to the Internet advertising ecosystem is estimated at $1,200 per year. (Siegel, 2012, P42) The information that is provided by consumers will be kept forever and like living with a shadow it will never go away. Against this context, it does not seem that consumers are getting honest gratication for the data they provide. Free apps, coupons etc. could be construed as a bribe to entice consumers in sharing their personal information. The only option that we are given is to simply click the box and accept the terms and conditions or not be given the use of the thing at all. We are not offered any 24

alternative options, the system leaves no room for compromise and has therefore become totally imbalanced. Designing to Confuse We are all familiar with the barrage of information that we are provided with when having to accept Terms & Conditions online. The text is extremely small, sometimes all in upper case text and is difficult to read, it is also often kept in parts of the website or application that few know is there. For example, Amazons iPhone app (see Figure 1) shows the legal information that is displayed in part of the application to look uninviting and complicated. ASOSs policy looks completely unlike the rest of their website, appearing bare and off-putting (See Figure 9 & 10). The language that is used throughout the explanation, such as ad-networks, web beacons and single-pixel gifs, is complex and not commonly understood by the average consumer. My survey showed that 68% of people are not aware of these terms.

Figure 9 - ASOS Home Page

Figure 10 - ASOS Privacy Policy

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It is interesting to think how many companies and products etc. use this same format when writing the Terms & Conditions section. The vast majority of people are put off by the large amount of text and often do not bother to read it. Indeed my survey showed that 85% of people I asked do not read the Terms & Conditions Pages. Typographer Brian Lawler says:

If I were trying to make a user agreement uninviting I would choose a small font, a sans serif font and I would set it in all caps, because what happens then is that you have type that becomes a texture rather than words and spaces. (Hoback, 2013)

Perhaps companies that use this format create the Terms & Conditions as a copycat and standardised way of presentation following in the footsteps of other companies before them, resulting in a domino effect where nothing is changed. However, we are living in a world where technology has encouraged the act of re-thinking. If everything on a website, app or other device is being updated, then why should the Terms and Conditions not be similarly re-examined? In my opinion companies are using these techniques to put consumers off reading the vast amount of information, that describes how their data will be used and what rights, (if any) they have once they have consented to provide information. In my survey showed that only 5% of people were aware of their privacy rights online.

When talking about ethical practice, I thought it important to refer back to the Oxford Dictionarys description of ethics as to respect other rational beings. This issue here is clearly one where the consumer is neglected and their entitlement to honest information not respected. Therefore the practice of OBA in this case blurs the line between useful and ethical advertising. It would be much easier for consumers to discover their rights and the conditions of the product usage from a short explanatory video. The reason that companies do not do this however, is because informed consumers may ask questions that the consumers want to avoid.

Pregnancy Prediction

The fact that department store Target were able to predict the teenage girls pregnancy, was due to Andrew Pole, a statistician working for Target. Poles pregnancy prediction model discovers pregnant, soon to be mothers before any other company does. Kasriel, author of Big Data, Small Whimper for 26

View Points Magazine explains; the fact that Target got it right seems to have absolved them from facing the question of whether they were right to do it.

(Kasriel, 2012)

Duhigg in his New York Times article mentions that Target became increasingly concerned after Pole had perfected his model, as it could cause a public-relations disaster if women were to nd out that they were being targeted without their knowledge or acceptance. Andrew Pole agrees that mothers may become frightened by the amount of knowledge they hold;

If we send someone a catalog and say, Congratulations on your rst child! and theyve never told us theyre pregnant, thats going to make some people feel uncomfortable. (Duhigg, 2012)

Target changed the way that expectant mothers were targeted, by mixing up the pregnancy related advertisements and offers with random products, displaying them closely together on screen:

Wed put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasnt been spied on, shell use the coupons. (Duhigg, 2012)

The fact that Target have chosen to be more secretive and enigmatic in their approach to the use of OBA indicates awareness from both sides that this issue is one of moral and ethical complexity. It is at this point that companies such as Target have undoubtedly blurred the line between the usefulness that they talk about, into an ethical debate. In Kantian terms, they have lost duty central to the morality and have become dishonest and lost respect for the consumer by targeting them secretly.

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The Quantied Self

The self is just our opperations centre, our consciousness, our moral compass, so if we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better. Gary Wolf: The quantied self (TED Talk, 2010)

Data Data Everywhere, A Special Report On Managing Information by The Economist Social, explains how networking site Facebook:

does not talk about what it nds additionally it goes on to say that Google reveals a little but holds back a lot. Even eBay, the online auctioneer, keeps quiet. (Cukier, 2010)

Companies such as Facebook do not share their ndings with consumers despite the fact that we are the ones that are providing them with the data. As consumers, we should have the right to know what happens to it and what intelligence it provides. Companies that use the term useful make no reference to what use it has for the consumer, despite the fact that insight into our habits, history and general information would provide consumers with information for helping quantify their own behaviours.

Running app Nike+ (see Figure 11) now has about 7 million users, all of which are constantly providing Nike with important and practical information that can be used to improve their products and discover intelligence about their customers. By analysing this data, Nike are able to enhance their products by making them cost-effective, quality-enhancing, and sustainable changes to product material. (Gopaladesikan, 2013) The success of Nike+ is an example of the way that data can be turned into smart data, opening up the information to both companies and consumers, generating respect and creating an ethical practice in terms of Kants theories of respecting other rational beings.

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Figure 11 - Nike+ Smart Phone App

Nike is providing a great example of how opening-up data sets can bring additional value to the entire supply chain. (Gopaladesikan, 2013) This is something that other companies have done, such as My Fitness Pal, where you are provided with a calorie counting service for the exchange of providing your personal dietary information and other information such as email address and contact numbers. It will be interesting to see in the future if and how data collection will help to benet our lives as individuals and consumers in an entirely useful way for not just large companies such as Amazon, Apple and Google.

Kasriel talks about the idea of the quantied self movement, explaining:

consumers increasingly have the opportunity to record and take control of their own data and use it to anticipate their own behaviour in the same way that corporations do. (Kasriel, 2012)

Using our data could improve our lives not just nancially, but with health, mood and relationships. Reading our own personal data would help us to make more informed decisions and life choices; being able to spot habits and patterns in our shopping choices that we can improve on and make more practical.

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There have been many designs that look at the quantied self. Figure 12 shows Purse Strings, Object #4 by Thomas Thwaites You are what you buy, a product design project exhibited in the Design Museums The Future is Here exhibition. The product titled Purse Strings, changes what you can buy, when, and where.

Figure 12 - Purse Strings Object #4 by Thomas Thwaites

by taking control of your cash and cards. This wallet will inuence what you spend money on, and sometimes wont let you buy certain things, at certain times and places. Nebo knows whats best for you, even if sometimes you dont. (Thwaites, 2013b)

The fact that this product design was featured in the exhibition called The Future is Here, suggests that designers are re-thinking ways that consumers can be helped with nances using tools such as these. Perhaps then it is time for companies such as Amazon, eBay etc. to start thinking about the way that consumers are being exploited and by respecting them; giving them something back, in order to create a more balanced system.

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Survey Results
Survey undertaken by Mackenzie Leary, 2013.

How often do you buy products online? Extremely often 25% Quite often 53% Moderately often 17% Not often at all 5% Do you own any of the following devices? Laptop 88% Smart Phone 75% Tablet 40% Please check any of the following sites you have used. Amazon 85% ASOS 47% Argos 20% eBay 55% John Lewis 40% M&S 25% Ocado 13% Sainsburys 22% Superdrug 3% Tesco 32% Topshop 42% I do not shop online 5% How useful do you nd advertising in general? Very useful 3% Useful 20% Slightly useful 47 % Not useful at all 30% Prior to this questionnaire were you aware of OBA? Yes 20% No 55% Partially 25%

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Are you aware of advertisements being targeted at you? Yes 30% No 15% Partially 55% How do you mainly receive Online Behavioural Advertising? Email 30% Social media ads 18% Pop-ups 3% Banner ads 45% I do not receive them 3% Other Do you think that Online Behavioural Advertising is useful for the consumer? Yes 39% No 43% Im not sure 18% Please check any words or phrases, which you think describe OBA. Bombarding 37% Complex 10% Creepy 22% Helpful 8% Imbalanced 18% Intelligent 27% Invasive 77% Irritating 85% Modern 28% One-sided 12% Personal 23% Practical 10% Relevant 7% Time-saving 5% Unethical 42% Unsettling 62% Useful 8% Do you agree with this statement Some are even gratied by a certain public exposure; it feels like validation, not violation. Being seen means that they are no insignicant or alone.' Agree 55% Disagree 32% Im not sure 13% 33

Do you read the Terms & Conditions on websites or apps? Yes 2% No 85% Occasionally 13% Would you rather see advertisements related to your personal interests than non-related ones? Yes 25% No 28% Im not sure 13% I would rather no advertising at all 33% Are you aware of devices such as ad blocker, incognito mode or cookie destroying devices that stop companies from collecting data and block advertisements? Yes 53% No 20% Partially 27% Do you use ad blocker, incognito mode or cookie destroying devices? Yes 18% No 82% Are you aware of your privacy rights online? Yes 5% No 62% Partially 33% Do you agree with this statement: 'Online Behavioural Advertising blurs the boundaries between useful and unethical practice.' Agree 78% Disagree 10% Not sure 12% Are you aware of what the following terms mean? - ad-networks, web beacons and single-pixel gifs Yes 12% No 68% Partially 20%

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Although these results have aided me to answer the question in mind, in order for opinions on OBA to be completely accurate, I would need to question consumers during an Internet session to receive real time measurements on consumers emotions. People may have been answering the survey generally or they might be writing based on what they think that I may want to hear, or something that they have read or on an opinion they think they ought to have. Therefore, a more immediate method of collecting peoples true feelings towards OBA could involve measuring body parameters such as, stress levels, eye dilation and where the eye is looking.

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Consumer Opinions
Survey undertaken by Mackenzie Leary, 2013. The things targeted at me are generally things that I don't want to buy. It usually comes up on my social media news feed and I nd it irritating as it's like a sort of junk mail and is generally nothing I want to buy... I almost wouldn't mind if it was.

I think that it is a good idea, both for the consumer and companies, enabling products to be better targeted to interested parties. Life stage stuff is slightly different, because you want to absorb as much as you can. It could be useful for life stages; you want those offers and deals so you tend to tell those companies about this big lifestyle change.

You should be able to say no, I am only looking/browsing when a product is of no relevance. Similar to a sales assistant.

Fine in moderation, but it can feel like the virtual equivalent of a pushy sales assistant.

OBA has its place but can be annoying if you've been buying for someone else and then get bombarded with similar products I've no interest in. Also its very annoying during Christmas and Birthdays, because my husband can see what I have been looking at. As long as there is effective government legislation and regulators ensuring the protection of the data which they gather, I do not mind it. However, if all the advertising is targeted towards your own established interests then it may contribute to the narrowing of your interests by reducing your exposure to things which you previously may not of heard about or even considered. I think its a bit too personal sometimes, I was looking at cosmetics the other day and then I started to get cosmetic surgery adverts. I like having control of what is being advertised to me, for example, I follow certain brands that I like on Instagram.

I think that OBA lacks full potential, it could be much smarter but it often fails. Sometimes it becomes so obvious that it's slightly embarrassing for the brands that they are needing to try so hard. It probably makes me less likely to re-visit the site.

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I havent had many good experiences with OBA. I bought a mug the other day and then I kept on getting mug advertisements which was annoying. I'm quite good at buying stuff online by myself without the help of advertising...in fact I spend too much online and Im poor; so dont really need the advertising to make me buy more and make me even poorer.

Im completely against targeted advetising, if someone is interested in receiving information about a product they will ask for information.

It can be a good idea in certain circumstances, like if you're looking for a certain product but don't know what sites are available.

Targeted advertising can never be fully targeted its too general.

I object to it, and I use DoNotTrackMe to avoid it. It's useful to the extent that if you're actually interested in buying something and can't nd it, that it could potentially help you, but it does concern me not knowing the extent of the information they're collecting about me.

I ignore all forms of online advertising so they are wasting there time on me. I use ad blocker, which stops adverts popping up. However, I do nd email targeted advertising annoying and I will sometimes consciously avoid using there website because of the email spam I get sent from them.

Like many people I am unreasonable - I refuse to pay for content online, but resent the advertising that sites have to use because people will not pay for their content. I nd all advertising vaguely irritating as it distracts from the information/entertainment that I am looking for online. I do not particularly mind that organisations are gathering information about my online viewing habits - I am more irritated by the fact that they are not very good at it and are far too short termist and narrow in their focus for the adverts to be actually useful.

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Conclusion

Brands can make people happy through ethical business practices, through addressing their target audiences expectations by bringing elements that make their customers happy to the top of the agenda, and sometimes through the unexpected acts of kindness. It pays off having happy, em powered customers. (Hough, 2013)

Reviewing all the information that I have collected through my survey, it is apparent that consumers do not fully oppose or fully support the current system of OBA. When asking whether people thought OBA is useful for the consumer, the results for and against were surprisingly close, with many being unsure. This nding demonstrates consumers willingness for OBA, but the secretive and pushy implementation prevents it from becoming successful. When asking consumers to select the words that they think best describes OBA, invasive, irritating and unsettling were the top three selections.

The rise in personal methods of communication suggests that OBA has the potential to become useful, however the current system is preventing this. Consumers are not receiving respect from companies in exchange for the value of their data they provide. It is the companies such as Apple, Amazon and Google that are beneting mostly from this exchange and it is useful for them by providing a cost effective and practical method of targeting their audiences. The amount of information consumers are providing, may come at a cost that they are unaware of. As Kasriel states The start and the end point of the process may be about purchasing, but in between our personal lives may be revealed. (2012) Consumers need to be respected and entitled to honest information; language used on sites such as ASOSs privacy policy is complex and designed to confuse.

The practice of OBA can be argued to limit independent thought, expose personal information and have similarities of an overly pushy sales assistant, these points can be considered from both perspectives. However, it is the Target case study that provides an example of how OBA can undoubtedly blur the line between useful and ethical practice, as advertisers have begun to target pregnant 38

women subliminally by mixing up pregnancy advertisements with those of garden equipment and everyday products. Ethics involves the need to respect other rational beings (Kant) which companies such as Target have failed to do so, using trickery and exploiting consumer desires by generating a need without consumers knowledge.

Companies should examine the success of Nike+, where consumers receive honest gratication for the information they provide, using it as a quantied self-tool to help them set goals and chart their progress online (Lutz, 2013). Being able to use our own consumer data would provide us with a platform to better ourselves by learning about our habits, nances and many other forms of information. However, we do not have access to this data; this seems to be odd I know that it is impossible for us to gain control over our personal information, but we should be given some access to it.

The right to control means that we should own our personal data, not the company. And when a company betrays our trust, we should be able to take that data with us, either to another company, or eradicate it, as we see t. (Hoback, 2013)

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Image Source List

Figure 1 Amazon Privacy Policy Screen Shot of iPhone Amazon.co.uk shopping app. Legal Privacy Policy. (2013) Figure 2 Apple Screen Shot <http://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/> (2013) Figure 3 Google Privacy Policy Screen Shot <http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/> (2013) Figure 4 Nebo Object #2 by Thomas Thwaites Personal image taken at Design Museum Exhibition Future is Here (2013) Figure 5 Nebo Object #2 by Thomas Thwaites Personal image taken at Design Museum Exhibition Future is Here (2013) Figure 6 New York Times Hey Youre Having A Baby <http://www.georginaluck.com/NY-Times-Magazine> (2012) Figure 7 Terms & Conditions May Apply Movie Still <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzyaeRcWE> (2013) Figure 8 Amazon Suggestion Box Screen Shot <http://www.amazon.co.uk/> (2013) Figure 9 ASOS Home Page Screen Shot <http://www.asos.com/women/> (2013) Figure 10 ASOS Privacy Policy Screen Shot <http://www.asos.com/infopages/pgeprivacy> (2013) Figure 11 Nike+ App <http://www.androidpit.com/official-nike-app-has-been-released> Figure 12 Purse Strings Object #4 by Thomas Thwaites Personal image taken at Design Museum Exhibition Future is Here (2013)

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Glossary of OBA Key Terms

Advertising Network A company that connects websites and web publishers with relevant advertisers. Advertising Server A company with technology that delivers advertising content to a relevant web page. Cookie A small le of letters and numbers downloaded on to your computer when you access certain websites. Cookies allow a website to recognise a users computer. Contextual Advertising Advertising targeted at a specic individual when visiting a website. Automated systems serve adverts depending on the page content. For instance, when viewing a lm review website, the user could be served new cinema releases, latest DVDs or lm merchandise advertising. Data Aggregator A company that pulls together data from multiple sources and builds segments based on interests (eg car buyers). These are sold to advertisers, advertising agencies or advertising networks directly or traded via an advertising exchange so the advertising can be more relevant to the consumer. All above taken from Your Online Choices Re-targeting Behavioural retargeting (also known as behavioural remarketing, or simply, retargeting) is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous Internet actions, in situations where these actions did not result in a sale or conversion. (Wikipedia) Single Pixel Gifs What an ad trafficker needs to "drop" on an ad (a pixel tag is an invisible image, basically) in order to analyse a view through. (Koegel, Kathryn. 2011) Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics, modelling, machine learning, and data mining that analyse current and historical facts to make predictions about future, or otherwise unknown, events. (Wikipedia) Web Beacons A 1-by-1-pixel tag typically used by an advertiser or a third-party ad server to track a unique user's activity over time. A beacon helps to properly attribute an online action to ad exposure, even if the action happened days after being exposed to the ad. DoubleClick, which originated the concept, still uses the name "spotlight tags." (Koegel, Kathryn. 2011) Web Publisher A company that promotes its products and services via its own website and, in this context, sells advertising on the site to help pay for them. (Your Online Choices) 41

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