Doing everything you can to keep the attention of prospective customers is a normal and efficient marketing strategy.
However, we need to take in account those who will be targeted those for who the world view will be distorted. On an e-commerce website, on a up-to-date news website; on a search engine, it undermines trust and removes objectivity. Like always, personalization and data collect also raises questions about confidentiality.
Consumers are usually not aware that personalization is going on around them. Every day, billions of us go online to speak about them selfs. Some of what we say is private, but much more sits in the public domain, making the Web a force like no other, providing the fabric in which communities can develop, business can be transacted, and, as events in the Middle East have demonstrated, even revolutions can be organized.
Within this, search engines play a central role, enabling us to find what we are looking for at the touch of a button. Even as I write this article, I am realizing how much I take it for granted. During my university days, I spent plenty of time scouring the library and bookshop for relevant textbooks and papers. All I have to do now is fire up my browser and head for Google.
In every technology that’s ever been invented has had its detractors, and I don’t count myself among those opposed to personalization and remarketing.