Good afternoon and welcome back to another post from ToBeSecured. On yesterday's episode of Cyber Tuesdays, I decided to tell everyone about the article I read on last week from part 1. It also featured a guest, Brennan, where he expressed his perspective on privacy as it relates to advertisement and technology. If you haven't already, head over to my Instagram page to watch the clip and see how it looks.
To recap about last week's post, Google has created a profile about us where they've collected our personal information such as name, address, email, where we work, the kind of degree we've acquired, and so on. In the hands of Google marketers, lies our information as well as our daily routines due to the tracking of our phones. It's important to understand what is critical here and our information is at the forefront of this topic.
As it relates to advertisement, every internet search contains keywords that we've entered into Google and they are being fought over. Beyond Google tracking our information, they use or exploit it so we can spend our money based off the results they've provided and it somehow integrates with what we want or need. Today, three out of four smartphone users turn to Google first to address their immediate needs. We rather confide in the internet versus reaching out to a family member or friend for answers to our weary thoughts and unanswered questions. As a result, Google marketers survive and thrive off the ability to play on our impatience and willingness to get hurried results when using our devices. This brings up the next concept: "micro-moments", the second we use our phone to alleviate the discomfort of not having "it" now - whether "it" is a last-minute sale, directions to a soon closing store, or details about a class that's filling up quickly. As Google plainly phrases it, micro-moments are the “intent-rich moments when decisions are made, and preferences shaped.” What Google means here is your need-it-now mentality usually comes with uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and fear. When you’re shopping in this mindset (for anything, not just a product), your restraint is clouded by emotion.
Google has taught those marketers how to best leverage them against you. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have micro-moments about 150 times per day. You will see ads during most of them. These ads speak to what you seek; play on emotions that are unlike you; and fit your age, income, gender, location, and browsing history. But marketers want to serve you ads during another form of downtime when you are clouded by emotion: during your moments of social awkwardness. And we humans are uncomfortable in social settings many, many times per day: in the elevator, waiting at the mall, when a stranger sits across from us on the bus, or when a co-worker inquires about our weekend. You don’t even have to open Google to be exploited; if you just browse the web, Gmail, or YouTube, you will be served a Google ad. Whether you click it or not, you are being impressed, counted as a look-through, and entered into a conversion path that will culminate days and clicks later.
The harsh reality here lies within what's beyond targeting our micro-moments, though. It's in something called the redirect method where users search for something via Google and they click on an advertisement that results in something totally different. This can be persuasively negative because, as Brennan mentioned in the video, people can be pulled into doing drugs or the beginning of a drinking stage. The example I gave came from an article on medium I came across where a woman was pulled into human trafficking after searching for rehabilitation facilities on Google.
This woman was an alcoholic and after binge drinking for days, she knew it was time to give it up and place herself into a rehab center. Like most people nowadays, she turned to the internet instead of talking to a family member or friend where the ad that caught her eye was for a Florida rehab center that suggested beautiful vistas replete with palm trees. When she called the number in the ad, she was unwittingly connected to a third-party call center instead of the rehab site. The rep on the phone sold her on the rehab’s resort-like atmosphere and told her that her treatment wouldn’t cost her anything. The rep wasn’t being truthful but needed to close the deal and get her on a plane before she sobered up. Within hours, she arrived at the true destination: a run-down, converted motel. The staff she found at the place was incapable of treating her complicated health issues. She faced alcohol withdrawal and was physically and spiritually stranded. Instead of getting help in a vulnerable moment, she’d fallen victim to a sophisticated deception — all through a Google ad. The target was exploited when she was confused and emotional, again Google playing on our clouded thoughts.
I ended the video with the same question I'll end this post with: If technological resources are created with the intent to solve problems in the real world, why are problems constantly being created? It isn't what is being created, but rather the who behind it.
If you would like to discuss further, please leave a comment or ask a question. I'd love to chat with my readers and hear your thoughts. Thank you for dropping in and remember ToBeSecured! Also, my social media handles are located in the footer of this page or any page you visit on my website.
Comments