The article further discusses the future of targeted advertising, which may involve generative AI creating personalized ads. However, it also notes that tech companies are introducing tools to help users keep their data private from online trackers. Despite these measures, the article suggests that privacy may become even more of a concern as AI becomes more advanced in crafting targeted advertising.
Key takeaways:
- Your phone isn't listening to your conversations to serve you ads. Instead, it collects data such as location information, search history, browsing history, purchase history, and physical interactions with your device.
- Advertisers use this data to create a profile of your interests and behaviors, which they use to serve you targeted ads. This process is called 'fingerprinting'.
- Advertisers also compare your data with the data of people you spend a lot of time with to predict your buying interests. This is why you might see ads for products that someone you know has been searching for.
- While targeted advertising can seem eerily accurate, it's not due to eavesdropping but rather to sophisticated data analysis and pattern recognition. However, the future of advertising could involve AI-generated ads that are even more personalized and potentially invasive.