You Are Being Watched

Kelsey Marques, 17, knew it couldn’t be a coincidence when ads for a Chevy Malibu showed up on websites she viewed just a day after she had searched online for that exact car.

“It’s a little creepy,” says the high school senior from Clark, New Jersey.

Even creepier, she says, is how her Instagram account seems to know so much about her—suggesting things like cheerleading videos or hair and makeup tutorials—just based on the kinds of posts she “likes” or users she follows, she says.

“It’s a little bit weirder just because they’re using your personality,” she says. “They’re developing a profile of you.”

The reality is that whenever you’re on the web, you’re being watched. Companies are gathering all the information they can about you: your friends, where you live, the videos you watch, the games you play—and maybe even how you’re feeling. Their goal is to sell your digital dossier to marketers, who use it to try to show you digital ads that match your tastes.

For privacy advocates, it’s all too close for comfort. Critics charge that much of this corporate data digging is done without users’ direct consent, and that it’s hard—if not impossible—to opt out of the tracking (see “Stop Following Me!,” below). And it can even lead to discrimination. 

“Commercial surveillance has been baked into the foundation of the internet,”says Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, a digital privacy watchdog. “When you sign onto Facebook, you’re signing your digital life away.”

Kelsey Marques, 17, searched online for a Chevy Malibu. The next day, ads for that exact car showed up on websites she viewed. She knew it couldn’t be a coincidence.

“It’s a little creepy,” says the high school senior from Clark, New Jersey.

Even creepier, she says, is how her Instagram account seems to know so much about her. The social platform suggests things like cheerleading videos or hair and makeup tutorials. It bases its suggestions on the kinds of posts she “likes” or users she follows, she says.

“It’s a little bit weirder just because they’re using your personality,” she says. “They’re developing a profile of you.”

The reality is that whenever you’re on the  web, you’re being watched. Companies are gathering all the information they can about you. That includes info on your friends, where you live, the videos you watch, and the games you play. They might even collect data on how you’re feeling. Their goal is to sell your digital dossier to marketers. These marketers use your online history to try to show you digital ads that match your tastes.

For privacy advocates, it’s all too close for comfort. Critics charge that much of this corporate data digging is done without users’ direct consent. They also claim that it’s hard—if not impossible—to opt out of the tracking (see “Stop Following Me!,” below). And it can even lead to discrimination.

“Commercial surveillance has been baked into the foundation of the internet,” says Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, a digital privacy watchdog. “When you sign onto Facebook, you’re signing your digital life away.”    

Data trackers—which include web giants like Google and Facebook—say the information they collect is made anonymous and dumped into broad categories such as “male sports fan ages 18-24 in Montana.” Marketers argue that seeing ads for things you’re likely to buy is less annoying than seeing random ads, and that the ads support content we’ve come to view as free, like Facebook, Gmail, and many websites.  

“Today, advertisers can understand their audience better and more quickly because of how often people go online and all the things they do online,” says Richard Joyce, a digital advertising analyst at Forrester Research. “The concept of it is, ‘We want to make something better for the customer.’”

A lot of money is at stake in the race to get to know you. Spending on digital advertising overtook spending on TV ads for the first time ever in 2016 and was poised to hit $83 billion in the U.S. in 2017, according to eMarketer.

Companies dig up data largely through cookies, little lines of code that many websites implant into a computer’s hard drive the first time a user visits. Basic cookies can save login information, user preferences, and items in a consumer’s shopping cart. But so-called third-party cookies can track a user within a whole group of websites. That’s why after you’ve been reading about sports on one site, you might see ads for sneakers on other seemingly unrelated sites.

Data trackers include web giants like Google and Facebook. They say the information they collect is made anonymous and dumped into broad categories such as “male sports fan ages 18-24 in Montana.” Marketers argue that seeing ads for things you’re likely to buy is less annoying than seeing random ads. They also assert that the ads support content we’ve come to view as free, like Facebook, Gmail, and many websites.

“Today, advertisers can understand their audience better and more quickly because of how often people go online and all the things they do online,” says Richard Joyce, a digital advertising analyst at Forrester Research. “The concept of it is, ‘We want to make something better for the customer.’”

A lot of money is at stake in the race to get to know you. Spending on digital advertising overtook spending on TV ads for the first time ever in 2016. And it was set to hit $83 billion in the U.S. in 2017, according to eMarketer.

Companies dig up data largely through cookies. Many websites implant these little lines of code into a computer’s hard drive the first time a user visits. Basic cookies can save login info, user preferences, and items in a consumer’s shopping cart. But so-called third-party cookies can track a user within a whole group of websites. That’s why after you’ve been reading about sports on one site, you might see ads for sneakers on other seemingly unrelated sites.    

And increasingly, companies are syncing up what you do online with what you do in the real world. Last May, Google said it was partnering with credit card companies so it could tell advertisers whether a customer made an in-store purchase after clicking on one of their ads.  

Laws protecting online consumers are sparse. Last spring, both houses of Congress voted to scrap regulations that would have required internet companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to get users’ consent before selling information they collect about them.

And increasingly, companies are syncing up what you do online with what you do in the real world. Last May, Google said it was partnering with credit card companies. They wanted to tell advertisers whether a customer made an in-store purchase after clicking on one of their ads.

Laws protecting online consumers are sparse. Last spring, both houses of Congress voted to scrap regulations that would have required internet companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to get users’ consent before selling information they collect about them.    

Facebook’s ad-targeting practices came under scrutiny last spring after a report in The Australian revealed a confidential document. In a presentation for a potential advertiser, Facebook boasted that it can pinpoint when its young users—including 1.9 million high school students—are feeling “stressed,” “overwhelmed,” “anxious,” and a “failure,” the report said.

Facebook has said that the data was anonymous and wasn’t used for ads.

Though federal laws prohibit companies from collecting online information from kids ages 12 and under, 13- to 18-year-olds have fewer protections, which vary state by state.   

Facebook also got into hot water in 2016 when a report by ProPublica pointed out that advertisers could exclude certain “ethnic affinities” from their Facebook ads. Federal laws prohibit housing and job ads that discriminate based on race, gender, or other factors. Facebook doesn’t ask users their race, but it may place them in certain categories like Asian-American or Hispanic based on their online activity on the site.  

Facebook initially defended the practice, but later said it would block ethnic marketing in ads and make marketers vow not to discriminate in their ads. However, ProPublica said in November that the practice was continuing.

“We passed civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s to prevent people from being excluded from core economic opportunities based on race, gender, age, and some other factors,” says Rachel Goodman, a staff attorney at the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). “Ad targeting has the potential to undo a lot of that progress.”

Goodman adds that many consumers don’t realize how much information they’re giving away because privacy policies are often buried deep in complex user agreements that “nobody reads,” she says.

“People need to have a better understanding of what the data is and where it’s going.”

Facebook’s ad-targeting practices came under scrutiny last spring after a report in The Australian revealed a confidential document. In a presentation for a potential advertiser, Facebook boasted that it can pinpoint the emotional states of its young users. The company's data tracked when users were feeling “stressed,” “overwhelmed,” “anxious,” and a “failure,” the report said. That database included info on the 1.9 million high school students who use Facebook.

Facebook has said that the data was anonymous and wasn’t used for ads.

Federal laws prohibit companies from collecting online information from kids 12 and under. But 13- to 18-year-olds have fewer protections, which vary state by state.

Facebook also got into hot water in 2016. A report by ProPublica pointed out that advertisers could exclude certain “ethnic affinities” from their Facebook ads. Federal laws prohibit housing and job ads that discriminate based on race, gender, or other factors. Facebook doesn’t ask users their race. But it may place them in certain categories like Asian-American or Hispanic based on their online activity on the site.

Facebook initially defended the practice, but later said it would block ethnic marketing in ads. The company also said it would make marketers vow not to discriminate in their ads. However, ProPublica said in November that the practice was continuing.

“We passed civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s to prevent people from being excluded from core economic opportunities based on race, gender, age, and some other factors,” says Rachel Goodman, a staff attorney at the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). “Ad targeting has the potential to undo a lot of that progress.”

Goodman adds that many consumers don’t realize how much information they’re giving away. This is partly because privacy policies are often buried deep in complex user agreements that “nobody reads,” she says. “People need to have a better understanding of what the data is and where it’s going.”