Advertisers are increasingly monitoring people's online behavior and using the information collected to show people individually targeted advertisements. There is a complex algorithm driven automatic analytical system behind this mechanism. This phenomenon is called online behavioral advertising.
By correlating the individual’s visits to websites, clicks of the ads, inferences about age range and sex, and approximate physical location based on the computer's IP address, advertisers and the agencies are able to build profiles of that individual's characteristics and likely interests and place the advertisement accordingly.
Even, it is possible to create a request for an online ad as an individual starts loading a webpage and an ad targeting that particular individual can be delivered just before the loading of the page is completed.
Online behavioral advertising—sometimes called “interest-based advertising”—is defined as the practice of collecting data from a particular computer or device regarding Internet-viewing behavior over time and across non-affiliate websites. The purpose is to serve advertisements that are tailored to those individuals’ inferred interests which later deliver to that computer or device based on those inferred preferences or interests.
The process starts by collecting data, through cookies, from a particular computer or device regarding internet viewing behaviors across multiple domains.
There are a number of purposes for online tracking, profiling and targeting individuals, and various techniques for conducting such tracking. Some purposes include measuring web site usage to improve the functionality of the site; fraud prevention; and online behavioral advertising.
The behavioral advertising provides benefits to consumers in the form of free web content and personalized ads that many consumers value. The benefits include, access to newspapers and information from around the world, provided free because it is subsidized by online advertising; tailored ads that facilitate comparison shopping for the specific products that consumers want; and, potentially, a reduction in ads that are irrelevant to consumers’ interests and that may therefore be unwelcome.
Online behavioral advertising
