If you have been paying attention, which I will admit I have not been, you will surely have noticed as you tootle around the web that the same ads for a particular product or service keep popping up. No, it’s not time to have your medication changed or the dosage raised. There is a technology that does this , and it’s quite a hot item in the board rooms of people who advertize. So, if you went to a site and looked at something on sale there, but didn’t buy it, you may find an add for that same thing following you around all over. Some people get really fried about this: if they didn’t want it once, they still don’t want it now. And some have been raising he double hockysticks about this with their legislators, who have nothing else to do right now. There is some muttering in the Senate about hearings and all, but a shoe company that does a lot of business online has a link on its page explaining how the thing works, and few people choose to opt out. I’m not indifferent to privacy concerns, but it does strike me a little odd that people who put all kinds of personal details on the web are in many cases so worked up over this. If you want privacy, stay off the web. If you want to be on it, keep the revelations you make to the minimum. And be conscious of the fact that there is a very large and effective method of commercial surveillance going on. After all, business is business and as Mr. Coolidge said: The business of America is business. That’s a tautology,but it was one of Coolidge’s longer utterances, so it’s been kept alive.

Read more:
Ads