Behavioral Advertising

Today, I decided to Google myself. It's funny to see what kind of sites come up. Luckily, there are several more notable individuals who share my name, so I will gladly allow them to take over the search engines with volleyball stats, court cases, etc. Google is a fascinating concept. If you ever have the opportunity to research how far-reaching its programming spans, you will be amazed. They are on their own playing field, and such extensive power can be a little scary. This is why, today, I want to focus on behavioral advertising.

Behavioral advertising, or behavioral targeting, is essentially when advertisers use your online activity to cater advertising toward your interests. This concept is similar to the practice of running particular adds during television shows that best suit the probable audience . However, the main difference between these two methods is the level of intrusion required. These companies track your internet habits through cookies they embed in your computer. This is where the add above comes into play.

This pirate layout of the Google trademark was intended to promote a popular pirate film during its release. However, the image has been taken out of context to symbolize the growing problems with internet piracy and the loosely defined restraints on major players like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Worry is snowballing around us. Whether it be about piracy (conveyed so cleverly in this image), behavioral advertising, or an uncontrollable monopoly, many people associate these worries with these foundational internet mega bases, predominantly Google.

What are your concerns surrounding the capabilities of these major players? Do you think the government has the kind of control we like to think it has over other markets? We will certainly revisit this topic in the weeks to come and further explore the implications of these thoughts.

Perspective is the source of our dilemma.

Perspective is the source of our dilemma. How do we define theft and accessibility in a way we can control? To many digital natives, piracy is understood to be illegal, but it is often regarded as socially acceptable. We live in a world where anyone can bypass regulations with the right amount of information. YouTube has already seen its fair share of legal issues and has adjusted accordingly, but what about sites like Video2mp3.net, where you can turn these videos into another song in your iTunes? Where does this legality come into play?

The list of branching media in question and legal loopholes goes on and on, and the debate over where federal regulations fall contains varying claims covering all parts of the spectrum. Below is an icon from FunFive.net that shows one simplistic version of anti-regulatory thinking:

Simplistic though it may be, this "handy guide" is correct. Piracy is not theft. Piracy is Copyright Infringement and is regulated as such. However, theft makes a stronger rhetorical argument when one is playing to an audience through pathos. Thus, anti-piracy ads have played up this lack of common distinction. Even in the Piracy It's a Crime video many of us have seen at the beginning of our favorite modern movies, piracy is portrayed as theft. The clip says, "You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a television. You wouldn't steal a movie. Downloading pirated films is stealing. Stealing is against the law. Piracy it's a crime."

Ads like this show us that Copyright holders have resorted to making claims that are not completely accurate to create a negative association in viewers' minds. The ads are asking us to take these laws more seriously by associating this crime with another that is generally accepted as inconceivable. Why would they do this? Well, it seems the generally accepted view of piracy is conceivable enough to make these associations necessary.

In creating ads such as these, Copyright holders are hoping to fiddle with interpretation and transform the common perspective. After all, perspective is the source of our dilemma.

Introduction

Berkman Center for Internet and Society lists three "inquiry areas," from which I am supposed to choose one to spend the semester blogging about. I am choosing the area Creativity, Piracy, and Intellectual Property because it combines two of my interests: law and education.

Creativity, Piracy, and Intellectual Property is a very broad topic. The three elements of the topic extend across vast areas of meaning. Intellectual Property, the most specific of the three, knows no bounds. Human intellect is infinite and non-quantifiable. In addition, the laws pertaining to creativity, piracy, and intellectual property are not limited to American society. In an increasingly globalizing world, information snowballs and the lines of separation become increasingly hazy.

New technology is constantly becoming available. In an age where information sharing is expected with greater intensity than ever before, it becomes harder for governments to regulate what they do not see coming. Intellectual property is seemingly up for grabs, and more importantly, people today feel a sense of entitlement toward this accessibility. How and where do you draw the line between the classic moral code and the ever-changing partnership of public standard and technological advancement? I will be asking myself this question and several others like it throughout the semester. I am very interested to see where this takes us...