E-Businesses - Google and Yahoo !!!!

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by MeenLoch, Feb 18, 2008.

  1. MeenLoch

    MeenLoch Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    569
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    50
    Gender:
    Female
    Imagine two eye balls on your computer watching everything you do. As we all know e-businesses thrive on the time they lock with the users. The more the time you are on a particular site or the more you use it, the more the money that goes into the pockets of these businesses.

    Now it's eerie sometimes. Yahoo or Google knows where I stay, what I do, what are my needs, what do I look for when I am on the internet and what is my objective, my likes and dislikes.

    The adaptive technology brings on palette links suited to my unique personalized choices. It's like even before I google and find out stuff on internet, the links are there appearing on the top of my gmail page. Isnt that a breach of privacy ? I know it s an automatic system, that looks for some repeated words in my mails and gives me back the search results, and it feels great to find exactly what you want, but it doesnt feel too great that someone knows every single thing about you, probably more than you know yourself. Probably this is what they called Aggressive marketing.

    Initially it kept me wondering that in Facebook or other forum like sites, these ads are never clicked. I mean our eyes are tuned to just rip off the necessary content in the site.
    But as I write this post, I realize that they have refined over a period of time. Now I find myself clicking on those gmail links more often. Now I understand that it's because they knows me better than before to give me exactly what I want, 90% of the time.

    E-bay or other advertisement sites work on the same foundation. They read the customer, rip you off. But now e-bay has come with a feature, which allows you to offset the profile settings, which means you ll be a fresh customer each time you visit the site...

    More on this here : Who's afraid of Google
     
    Loading...

  2. Jey

    Jey Administrator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    2,765
    Likes Received:
    1,066
    Trophy Points:
    315
    Gender:
    Male
    You are giving Google and Yahoo too much credit if you think that they know a lot about "you". They know a lot about the "cookie" that resides in your computer. Erase it (which is fully in your control) and you have made them go back to ice age. The point you are raising is something that is debated pretty heavily in the online advertising world. My thoughts is that privacy is breached only if these companies know something about you as a person (your name, telephone number, credit card, address etc). Cookie doesn't come close to giving them that.

    Ads are information. Good marketers believe that through and through. Also, good marketers target well. They put the right message infront of the right audience at the right time. And that is precisely what the facebook folks have done for you. To me, if at all, it is a great success story of marketing.
     
  3. MeenLoch

    MeenLoch Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    569
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    50
    Gender:
    Female
    My thoughts is that privacy is breached only if these companies know something about you as a person (your name, telephone number, credit card, address etc).

    I thought their servers store my details, each time I browse. "Who's afraid of Google" from ET says the same thing. Google is the repository of information both personal and non-personal. As for my name, place, telephone number - When I am logged into gmail, I do google searches, do map searches from my house to other places and browse around internet with gmail logged in, which means google exactly knows what I do. I thought he has a track record of whatever I do, wherever I click.
    Have I understood it correctly ? I will delete the cookies, but still they will know everything.

    How secure is my personal information, if at all they know is my concern. I wouldn't mind if they see my choices ( like astrology, Science, Cooking etc) and present me what I need. That indeed is good marketing. Infact smart marketing which benefits both the user and the companies.
     
  4. Shanvy

    Shanvy IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    23,659
    Likes Received:
    27,217
    Trophy Points:
    590
    Gender:
    Female
    Vidya,

    Are we pressing the panic button too fast. as jey says, what you want the other person to know is totally in your hands. keeping track of your cookies is enough keep yourself safe and also always following the do's and don't like not keeping vital information open is to be strictly followed.

    With marketing, becoming more and more difficult, e-business like google ad sense are a way of survival..

    How do you think you get somany marketing calls from insurance, and blah...it is a deal that the provider and a company get into....
     
  5. Jey

    Jey Administrator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    2,765
    Likes Received:
    1,066
    Trophy Points:
    315
    Gender:
    Male


    Its all driven by the cookie that resides on your computer. Erase it and you won't get those prefilled columns for your home location etc, The only way then Google will remember your information is if you created a Google Account and told Google to keep those information in their records.
     
  6. MeenLoch

    MeenLoch Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    569
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    50
    Gender:
    Female
    I did not mean that information stored in memory through cookies Jey, like the address appearing on it's own.I feel it does not appear there, if I delete my cookies, but google still knows my personal information, because I typed it before, and I keep re-typing it. Some kind of adaptive technology I mean.

    I also do not remember if I have allowed google to keep the information in it's records. I thought, it automatically does.

    Here is what I found. Nice piece of information :)
     

Share This Page