I like to think that I am reasonably immune to advertising, but the advertisers are getting cleverer in a way that may breach my defences. As I was having a quick peruse of Facebook over lunchtime I noticed an advert inviting me to sign up with a legal recruitment agency that specifically mentioned the firm that I currently work for. I believe this is an example of "ad-tech", the method by which internet sites are able to track all sorts of information about, your likes and dislikes, what you talk about with your contacts and then use that information to tailor advertising to you every time you are on their site. An example of this would be if someone announced they were engaged then they would start to see adverts for wedding planners.
This sort of thing has been going on for a while. If you buy a book through Amazon or Waterstones they then offer you books of a similar genre on subsequent visits to the site. That is probably acceptable to most people, indeed if you have a specialist area of interest then it is quite helpful. However, there is surely a line to be drawn and people will need to be careful about what they say and look at on sites such as Facebook. This does also beg a wider question of what else the social media sites will do with this information they have on you.
So yet another reason for the social media sceptics to steer clear of these sites. I remain a fan - I think these sites are a great way of keeping in touch with friends and contacts and also of staying up to date with the news - but you do need to be careful how you use them.
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