Is surveillance advertising helping or hurting financial wellbeing?
The digital age has brought us many conveniences and innovations, but it has also given rise to a powerful and often invisible force that shapes our lives in ways we may not even realise.
Surveillance advertising, or the practice of extracting an individual's personal data to target ads towards them, has become increasingly prevalent in today's digital landscape.
The business model is simple but effective: companies collect vast amounts of data on individuals by tracking their online behaviour, including their browsing history, search queries, and social media activity. This data is then sold to advertisers who use it to create highly detailed profiles of individuals, which can be used to predict behaviour and preferences and deliver highly personalised and manipulative content.
The result is a digital economy that is built on the exploitation of personal data, where consumers are constantly bombarded with ads that exploit their known vulnerabilities, such as gambling ads, and deprive them of opportunities, such as job and mortgage ads.
The harmful effects of targeted surveillance advertising are well-documented. For example, research has shown that children are particularly vulnerable to the manipulative tactics used by advertisers, and that exposure to targeted ads can lead to a range of negative outcomes, including reduced self-esteem and wellbeing.
Similarly, organizations like Citizens Advice have highlighted the ways in which targeted ads can lead people into "financial quicksand," where they make poor financial decisions based on misleading or inaccurate information.
Online gambling companies are also known to use targeted surveillance advertising to build profiles of individual consumers, including their susceptibility to marketing, in order to exploit them and encourage excessive gambling behaviour.
Despite these undeniable harms, the digital economy continues to rely heavily on targeted surveillance advertising as a highly profitable business model. However, an alternative such as contextual advertising, which delivers ads based on the content of the web page rather than on the individual's personal data, is less harmful and less prone to fraud. Brands that have foregone behavioural ads typically see no negative revenue impact, indicating that there is no need for businesses to rely on targeted surveillance advertising to be successful.
The push to ban targeted surveillance advertising is gaining momentum, but success is not assured. To strengthen the case, investment in research to understand the full impact targeted advertising has on all sections of society, particularly those that are economically disadvantaged is needed. You can help drive this issue up the agenda and raise awareness of the harms of targeted surveillance advertising. Get in touch if you can support making this research a possibility, or sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with the campaign.