As companies have wanted to track online behavior, they have found some ways around this. Any single Web page you see may have information drawn from several Web servers, each of which gets to put its own cookie on your computer and to check if it has left a cookie there before. Increasingly, advertising networks, like AOL’s Advertising.com, place invisible, one-pixel-square images on Web pages of sites they work with, in order to use cookies to keep track of which users have visited the network’s sites and under what circumstances. But this is still fragmented information. Advertising.com only can build a file of behavior on sites that choose to enable its invisible cookie.
Phorm gets around these restrictions by piggybacking its cookies on the backs of those left by other sites. Phorm installs equipment at the I.S.P. that intercepts the user’s browser when it visits a Web site for the first time. It redirects the browser to Phorm’s own site. That way it can place and read its own cookie with a Phorm identification number. It then appends this number onto the cookie of the other site, say Google or Yahoo. It does this without the permission of that other site. ^
While we were all getting a bit worried about the NSA’s snooping of our internet traffic, suddenly the oldest and more probable threat rises up to meet us. As advertisers find out they were advertising to the wrong demographic, and that Google’s miracle may have been built on as much adsense hot air as anything else, they’re looking for ways to track users and filter out the ones who do not have the required disposable income. In other words, it’s no longer 1996, and we can’t assume that the people with internet access are the upper middle classes any longer.
The truth is that finding elite consumers is about to become a real manic pursuit:
Incomes, on average, have declined by 2.5% among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while inching up by just 1.3% for those in the middle fifth of households, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, two liberal think tanks.
The wealthiest slice of Americans, however, saw their incomes rise by 9%.
The average income of the bottom fifth of families was $18,116; the middle fifth, $50,434; and the wealthiest fifth, $132,131. ^
Looking at this practically, in an age of increasing gasoline and housing costs, as well as future environmental costs and across-the-board increases in cost of living, a family earning under $100,000 a year is going to have to scrimp and save to experience the lifestyle they have had up until now. It’s as if the bill just came due from years of cheap gasoline inflating our lifestyles. Is it possible that we never left the Dust Bowl days behind?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the year before February 2008 rose by 4.5 percent^, while wages rose by 3.3 percent^. That’s a net loss of just over one percent, which means that $100 today bought what $98.50 or so did a year or two ago. Add to that inflation and other costs, and life is getting more expensive.
According to statistics with the U.S. Department of Labor, Americans are paying 20 percent more for bread than they did in 2005 and nearly twice the price for a dozen eggs.
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Karrer said produce that once went for $1 per pound now fetches $1.99, a hike he sees in grocery stores all over the valley. ^
What this means is that for most Americans, the future includes a lot more saving if they want to avoid living in debt. That in turn means that spending will decrease, except for those whose incomes rose 9%. They are going to be the target market for any luxury goods, a nebulous category that includes both luxuries and pricier versions of otherwise mediocre goods (would you eat a $5 pizza?).
Advertising tracking is in our future. I don’t like what I read about it, however, because this information produces a brilliant scatter diagram showing the activities of a human being. Who looked up what address on Google maps? He viewed the record for what kind of book at the library? He visited a site selling music or books associated with the anarchist movement? “Better get a warrant, Lou. This guy sounds like bad news.” That’s how in innocence these technologies can become dangerous.
Adam Gomaa | 16-Apr-08 at 7:58 pm | Permalink
Help me with the logic here, because I’ve seen other people use this reasoning as well.
1. Inflation is high, and/or is going to be high.
2. Inflation makes saving money a Bad Deal, because the $100 you saved yesterday is worth less today.
3. (Your words, of course) “What this means is that for most Americans, the future includes a lot more saving if they want to avoid living in debt.”
I don’t follow. More inflation means it makes more sense to spend the money you have *now*, even on things that will depreciate, because that same money *won’t be able* to buy those same goods as time goes on.
Sounds to me like less saving is the way to go. The only flaw with this, of course, is that our economy depends in no small part on people saving money, so that banks will have money to lend. There’s a reason tax laws - and even social pressure - favor saving: it makes the world go round, even if it’s a bum deal for those doing the saving whenever we hit an inflation bump.