Targeted by ads on Facebook? Communications prof can tell you why

If the ads on your Facebook profile page are looking eerily catered to you, there may be a way to get rid of them.

Joseph Turow, associate dean for graduate studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, has proposed a clickable icon that will tell Internet users what personal information has caused a specific ad to appear.

The icon, which could be on any Web site that uses targeted advertisements, will lead to a "privacy dashboard" that not only tells users what information was used but also gives them the option to block that information.

Currently, privacy controls have been "opt-in" and "opt-out," Turow explained. "Opt-in" Web sites consult users before using personal information to cater ads and other related links to them, while "opt-out" sites do not.

"The problem with this is that it's too binary," he said. "It's either you do it or you don't."

Research at the Annenberg Public Policy Center showed that most Americans are unaware of the extent to which sites participate in "data mining" - extracting patterns in large amounts of data - and cannot make informed decisions.

The mock-up icon, designed with the help of Annenberg staff member Kyle Cassidy, is in the shape of a T - for ad "targeting" - with a question mark to increase curiosity.

It was an "easy way to visually brand what [Turow] was talking about," Cassidy said.

Computer Science professor Jonathan Smith said he became involved in the planning process after "bouncing around ideas" with Turow at a series of Turow's seminars on technology and policy.

"It's kind of an exciting notion," Smith said. "The issue is that people will make more informed decisions about information they release if they see how it's influencing their Internet experience."

This influence could potentially be great, according to Turow.

Using personal information gathered about a user over time, a company could create labels that "would lead to showing very different ads and different views of the world through news and entertainment, depending on what they think of you," he said.

Personal criteria that could inspire targeted ads include a .edu e-mail address, a browser history of certain product sites or a zip code known to be a high-income area, Smith said.

However, Turow emphasized that the development of the dashboard is still in its early stages.

"There's a lot of complexities involved in this," Turow said. "Knowledge is considered proprietary," or classified, especially by companies such as Google that tailor ads to users.

The biggest technical challenges for Smith are "obtaining the data and presenting that in a comprehensible form."

"It's not a be-all and end-all," Turow said, explaining that his purpose was not to necessarily create a finished product but "to get an idea out there in digital media that people in the advertising business, as well as in government, might find useful."

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