The Candidates Are Monitoring Your Mouse

[Judi Lynn]

August 28, 2008, 5:00PM EST text size: TT
The Candidates Are Monitoring Your Mouse
More and more politicians are capturing personal data to target voters. Privacy advocates are worried

Barack Obama and John McCain are tracking what you do online. The Presidential candidates are so eager for votes this November that their campaign staffs are turning to behavioral targeting, a sophisticated though controversial strategy to pinpoint voters and volunteers online with advertising tailored to their interests. It's the first election in which White House hopefuls are using the approach. "The growth will be substantial this year," says Thomas Gensemer, managing partner at Blue State Digital, a political Web shop working with Obama.

Behavioral targeting gives campaigns a potentially powerful new way to slice up the electorate. In the past, politicians used surveys and demographics to target voters with mailings and local TV ads. But much of the effort was wasted. Campaigns had to assume that individuals shared the values of a large group—say, the National Rifle Assn. or a Zip Code on Chicago's West Side. Now the advertising arms of Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT), and others help politicians uncover people's interests by tracking their Web surfing and searches. By mixing these profiles with data such as age or gender, they can build thousands of voter profiles, each a target for a customized pitch.

The Obama campaign, at the Democratic convention this past week, wouldn't discuss its strategy. But the nominee is using the technology to woo voters, donors, and volunteers, say sources familiar with the effort. For example, when people visit the volunteer section of the Obama Web site but click away without signing up, the campaign puts a cookie on their Web browser. Then, as surfers move around the Web, the campaign looks for opportunities to bring them back. If they go to a parenting blog, Obama can deliver an ad about education policy. If they read a story on a tech news site, the campaign can serve up something about technology policy.

McCain's campaign says it's working with Yahoo and Google (GOOG) on similar efforts, though it won't share details for competitive reasons. One strategy is to track down military veterans online, on the assumption they're more likely to give votes and money to the Vietnam vet. Once staffers identify these people, they deliver ads with taglines such as "Experience Money Can't Buy."

More:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_36/b4098022877194.htm?chan=magazine+channel_news

[hobbit709]

1. Nothing like turning off cookies.

[silverweb]

2. LOL... exactly.

I selectively allow only some cookies as necessary, and I clear both cache and cookies several times a day.

There are simple ways for people to protect themselves pretty adequately on line.

[oldskool]

3. I see our liberties don't

matter to either candidate.

[silverweb]

4. There's nothing illegal about targeted ads on line.

Use ordinary precautions, such as limiting cookie acceptance, clearing them frequently, a spy-ware blocker, etc, and you'll avoid most targeted marketing.