Targeted advertising: a digital dilemma

Earlier this summer, National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed details via Wikileaks about PRISM, the agency’s covert wiretapping operation.

This revelation devastated the nation’s credibility both domestic and abroad, leaving many unanswered questions about our government’s role in providing security and respecting the privacy of individual citizens.

Several aspects of the Snowden ordeal have turned me into a technophobe, just short of the tin foil-hat.   However, my angst isn’t really about the government tracking and storing my every move online.

Admittedly, my online presence was boring.  I wasted an immeasurable amount of time on Facebook, but I really didn’t embrace social media as communal catharsis, a “complaint book,” if you will.

Over the summer I deactivated my Facebook, figuring that the digital village can carry on without one more idiot.

But what has mainly sparked my apprehension is a concept called “targeted advertising.”  A long known but rarely publicized fact about Facebook is that it silently collects all information users input, aggregates that information, and  then sells the information in bulk to advertisers.

Furthermore, Facebook uses specific algorithms to direct advertisements to users, targeting them with a customized stream of ads and promoted content which appears in the users ad-bars and newsfeeds.

At first I attempted to use the AdBlock Plus plugin for Firefox, which silently blocks advertising scripts from most web pages.  However, this wasn’t enough.  Even if I couldn’t see the ads, that information was still being collected, broadcast, and used for profit by someone else.

I don’t tolerate my digital activities being tracked, and I certainly don’t want my information being translated to dollars in someone else’s pocket. The clearest solution I could find is to opt out and drop off the grid.  My advice is to ignore social media and leave the visage-tome to trap someone else.