Online behavioral advertising collects user data to personalize ads. It’s successful because it targets users with relevant ads, but some see it as a privacy violation. Network advertising is similar but on a larger scale. Users can check a website’s privacy policy to avoid it.
When a company uses information collected from a computer user’s preferences to personalize advertisements specific to the user, it is considered online behavioral advertising. Information is collected over the Internet when the user searches websites. Users are served ads that match past searches, making ads targeted and generally more successful. Behavioral advertising has been successful specifically because it matches ads to what the user is looking for, but some users see this as an invasion of privacy. Network advertising is similar to behavioral advertising, but on a much larger scale.
Online behavioral advertising works on the premise that when a consumer visits a company’s website or a network-attached website, he or she is looking for specific information. Information about these surveys may be collected by the website using a variety of means. Two of the most popular methods of collecting information about a user are computer cookies and creating a database of IP (Internet Protocol) and MAC (Media Access Control) addresses that are associated with the collected data.
As information is gathered from the databases, scripts on the web servers fill the advertising space with advertisements similar to the user’s previous queries. For example, if a user did a search for a specific college, the web server might display banners and links for that college. If there are no ads that specifically match the search, similar ads – perhaps for nearby colleges or distance learning programs – will be displayed.
Online behavioral advertising has been a successful online advertising method. This is because it targets Internet users and provides them with advertisements that are more likely to click, rather than bombarding them with random advertisements that have little chance of being clicked. Some consumers, however, do not see this as an advantage. Instead, they consider collecting information about your searches and online activities to be a violation of your privacy. Computer users who want to avoid online behavioral advertising should check a website’s terms of service or privacy section for details about whether that particular website collects this information.
Network advertising works on the same principles as online behavioral advertising, but on a larger scale. Many websites can run on the same network or server. When a user performs a search or accesses a section of a website, advertisements of a similar nature will be sent to the user whenever the user accesses another website on the same network or server. If the online advertisement appears on a single website rather than an entire network, it is called website advertising.
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