How Microsoft and Yahoo Are Selling Politicians Access to You

[Heath]

http://www.propublica.org/article/ho...-access-to-you

Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political campaigns the ability to target voters online with tailored ads using names, Zip codes and other registration information that users provide when they sign up for free email and other services.

The Web giants provide users no notification that their information is being used for political targeting.

In one sense, campaigns are doing a more sophisticated version of what they've always done through the post office ? sending political fliers to selected households. But the Internet allows for more subtle targeting. It relies not on email but on advertisements that surfers may not realize have been customized for them.

Campaigns use voters records to assemble lists of people they're trying to reach ? for instance, "registered Republicans that have made a donation," Yahoo's director of sales Andy Cotten told ProPublica. Microsoft and Yahoo help campaigns find these people online and then send them tailored ads.

These messages don't just pop up in Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. Because Microsoft and Yahoo operate huge networks that provide advertising on some of the most popular web destinations, targeted ads can appear when a voter visits a swath of different sites.

Microsoft and Yahoo said they safeguard the privacy of their users and do not share their users' personal information directly with the campaigns. Both companies also said they do not see the campaigns' political data, because the match of voter names and registration data is done by a third company. They say the matching is done to target groups of similar voters, and not named individuals.

According to Microsoft, President Obama's re-election campaign has recently done this kind of targeting, and both national political parties have done so previously.

Heath Reviewed by Heath on 11th Jun 2012. How Microsoft and Yahoo Are Selling Politicians Access to You http://www.propublica.org/article/how-microsoft-and-yahoo-are-selling-politicians-access-to-you Rating: 5

[cvrle77]

Privacy, who needs it anymore...