I have no ethical concerns with online advertising. While I, like plenty of other Internet users, feel that online ads are annoying and a tad distracting from the actual content that I was browsing for (seriously, support the Adblock guys and watch your online life change), I personally do not see anything wrong with the current ways companies target ads towards specific user. Specifically, I do not see an issue with the practice of collecting and performing data analytics on user data such as purchase history, search history, and social media activity in order to discern patterns in users and thus create more accurate profiles for advertisers to work with. What I do have are some qualms is how much control users ultimately have over their data.
It should really come as no surprise that there is a tradeoff between convenience and surveillance when it comes to online advertising. After all, we make similar tradeoffs every day when we’re not online. We allow stores to monitor us on security cameras in exchange for being able to browse their wares. We allow banks to monitor our accounts in exchange for protection against fraud, identity theft, etc. We even give up some of our personal freedom in order to be governed and live in the relative safety of society as opposed to, say, endless nights of brutal anarchy. The issue for most users and for me personally doesn’t lie in the fact that they data is being collected (after all, they are getting access to free services like Gmail in return), but in the fact that they feel as if they are not in control of their data. This can be seen in the results from a survey by Carnegie Mellon’s Lorrie Cranor and Stanford’s Aleecia McDonald: users cared less about data privacy when they found out that their data was already being tracked, but were more likely to care about privacy if they were being asked to release some data for tracking (i.e. were losing control). While companies like Google and Facebook own the user profiles and thus control how the data flows, I do believe that the users still ultimately control their data. Companies are therefore in a unique position to at least alleviate some of the anxiety that comes with users relinquishing control of their data by being completely transparent about what that data will be used for (similar to what Facebook does now, but with even more detail) and and always giving users to option to opt out. Even better would be giving users a degree of control such that they can specify what kind of data gets released, e.g. allowing stuff like search history to be tracked while holding back more sensitive information such as credit card purchases. Once users have given some form of consent the companies would then be free to do as they pleased with the in essence public data, such as sell it to 3rd parties. The only exception to this would of course be official government warrants requesting user data available to the companies.
As a whole, I find online advertising less invasive and more of a nuisance easily solvable with the plugin Adblock, which allows for a more enjoyable browsing experience free from any distractions. And for those who question whether or not it is ethical to use tools like NoScript and Adblock, is it unethical to unsubscribe from certain magazines and catalogs whose products you have no interest in?
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