Search This Blog

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Does the tail wag the dog? Or, is it the Cookie Matchmaker?

After a recent sighting of a pop-up advertisement that does not reflect the ethical of intentions of this blog, I looked for a way to ban that advertisement from popping up again.

I suspect there is a way to do this, but I could not immediately find it out.

 Instead, the question that I typed in a variety of search strings ultimately led me to a video that I watched which showed me some of the ways connections are made between advertisers and a blog site.  While the retailers show up initially as a possible, natural alliance to the content of the blog, they soon begin to be matched to the reader's surfing trail, I think, as well as the blog or any other destination.

That idea almost caused me to have an identity crisis, for I quickly figured out that the troublesome advertiser I wanted to ban must have shown up in response to some trail that my curiosity has taken, and which has led the Cookie Matchmaker (the Big Brother that matches cookied information to surfers) to arrange it so that we keep bumping in to each other on this blog.

Hmmm.

The problem didn't originate with someone else.  It happened, in part, because of something I have done.

This result has caused me to take a second look at myself in the mirror called pop-up advertisements, which pop up in response to how I am being profiled.

It has made me want to think about who I really am--and if the way the Cookie Matchmaker sees me--is more accurate than I was at first willing to believe.

I invite others to investigate this mystery, and post your own observations here so that we can learn more about this multi-dimensional dynamic together.

No comments:

Post a Comment