Bring it on, Big Brother

By Ted Streuli The Daily Record Newswire What if you found yourself staring back at you from a magazine ad? Advertising agencies have long known that the closer an ad comes to that, the more likely you are to read it. Yes, men will look at the young woman in the bikini toting the six-pack of beer, but with a different sort of interest than the intense curiosity raised by an image of one's self -- or a close approximation. I don't expect to see my face staring back at me from my copy of Sail magazine. But if there's an ad with a photo of a middle-aged guy, perhaps even a middle-aged guy on a sailboat with his wife and young children, I am going to read it. That image screams, "Hey! This is for you! You should read this!" Show me a picture of a 12-year-old girl and I assume the product is for little girls. I move on. As Facebook prepares to become a public company, the Web is all atwitter. There is much discussion over privacy concerns and the possibility of government oversight and intervention in the privacy policies of social media companies. Ireland, home of Facebook's European operations, has already insisted that the company give its users control over their own information. That's merely a precursor to a proposed European law that would require all online businesses to purge all of a user's data upon request. The self-appointed online privacy experts who have quickly become the favorites of talk radio hosts sound much alike: People are willing to give up some information, they say, but the social media companies can't let the amount of data they have on users become creepy. Creepy, one presumes, would be the electronic version of your own face staring at you from an ad in Sports Illustrated. Effective, but creepy. Last month, the Obama administration announced a set of privacy principles being developed by the industry through the Commerce Department that the Federal Trade Commission would be able to enforce, potentially providing a quicker solution than legislation might. That is, assuming there's a problem that needs to be solved. If there's something in my life that I want to keep secret, I'll keep it off the Web. If advertisers know more about me, they'll deliver more of what interests me and, perhaps more importantly, less of what doesn't. Imagine your mailbox stuffed only with advertising that interests you. Gone would be offers for new cars if all the car dealers knew that I just bought one. Conversely, if they know I buy a new car every six years or so, they would send timely offers I would welcome. I don't find it creepy at all when the advertising surrounding a story I'm reading is for products and services that interest me rather than hair extensions and fingernail polish, which do not. On Monday, while I was reading The New York Times website, I was shown ads for Sperry Top-Siders, which I wear, and pet insurance, which I recently looked into. In contrast to the rash of privacy paranoia that's sticking to the Web right now, I want advertisers to know me better. I want offers that are meaningful, I want to be rewarded for my loyalty, and I want the clutter of uselessness to evaporate. I do not care if they know how old I am, how much income I have, where I live, what I drive, what I do for fun, and what my shopping habits are. Make my life simpler, Madison Avenue. Send me all the cookies you want. Pull the needle out of the haystack for me; I'll be grateful, not resentful. Published: Fri, Mar 16, 2012