Individualized Advertising and It's Implications

The way things are going now, it makes it easier for companies to push the limits of what society at the time accepts. In the seventies, the notion of anyone gathering any information about a person without their consent was unacceptable. This was only a few decades ago and things have changed so much. Now we knowingly allow big businesses, whose main goal is to get rich to gather information about us to make even more money. As a result, we as customers get an easier and more convenient shopping experience but it doesn’t seem worth it. Avoiding subscriptions to store webpages or membership cards can only take you so far. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to live without the internet. Someone could choose to go the unconventional route and not use any new technology to completely avoid being tracked. However, that would mean basically becoming Amish.

Individualized advertising is so widely accepted, or possibly ignored; it’s now normal. The implication is that it’s not a bad thing to have advertisers do this because it benefits you as a consumer. This, of course, is not true. The benefits of convenience don’t outweigh the benefits the business itself receives. Consumers have a slightly better shopping experience but with underlining manipulation. This especially applies to impulsive buyers that may buy something only because there’s a sale on it. As we come to accept it more, companies will ask for more and what they decide will become the new norm. Maybe if given a choice on it, it would seem more acceptable. In a society where new technology is integrated into the way a person runs their business, shops, and even their learning, it’s not unreasonable to want the option to use it freely, without worry that our information is unsafe. However, because sharing information with third parties is now the new normal, the majority might not ask for this freedom.