Want To Know How Your Personal Information Is Used Online?
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עברית (Hebrew)
Navigating the Web gets easier by the day as corporate monitoring of our e-mails and browsing habits fine-tune the algorithms that serve us personalized ads and recommendations. But convenience comes at a cost. In the wrong hands, our personal information can be used against us, to discriminate on housing and health insurance, and overcharge on goods and services, among other risks.
Columbia University reports that a group of computer scientists have designed a second-generation tool for bringing transparency to the Web. It is called Sunlight and builds on its predecessor, XRay, which linked ads shown to Gmail users with text in their e-mails, and recommendations on Amazon and YouTube with their shopping and viewing patterns.
Sunlight works at a wider scale than XRay, and more accurately matches user-tailored ads and recommendations to tidbits of information supplied by users, the researchers say.
The researchers set up 119 Gmail accounts, and over a month last fall sent 300 messages with sensitive words in the subject line and body of the e-mail. About 15 percent of the ads that followed appeared to be targeted; some seemed to contradict Google’s policy to not target ads based “on race, religion, sexual orientation, health or sensitive financial categories,” the researchers said. For example, words typed into the subject line of a message — “unemployed,” “depressed,” and “Jewish,” were found to trigger ads for “easy auto financing,” a service to find “cheating spouses,” and a “free ancestor” search, respectively.
The researchers caution against inferring that Google and other companies are intentionally using sensitive information to target ads and recommendations. The flow of personal data on the Web has become so complex, they said, that companies themselves may not know how targeting is taking place.
Sunlight’s intended audience is regulators, consumer watchdogs, and journalists. The tool lets them explore how personal information is being used and decide where closer investigation is needed.
