Just because I liked the film "Minority Report" does not mean that I like the idea of advertising targeted specifically at me- it tends to make me paranoid and does little to endear me to the product. Sites like Facebook and Gmail have long used targeted advertising, but now advertisers are able to use a special technology which enables them to follow customers from site to site online.

Re-targeting, as those in the advertising industry refer to the intrusive Internet advertising technique, uses cookies to track your on-line movements. If you visit a site selling a particular toy, for example, you may find the toy advertised on several other sites that you also visit.

Two start-ups- Criteo and TellApart- have started to use the technology, but larger companies such as Google have tested similar techniques as well. The online advertising technique typically used by Google is known as behavioral targeting- the targeting makes an "educated guess" about what products a person might like based on their Internet browsing history. As the NYT observes, behavioral targeting is already being debated in congress because of privacy concerns.

TellApart analyzes the data than the web-surfers use and then targets only the surfers likely to use the products or services. Clients are then charged with a Click-through rate.


The Criteo website has a Demo showing potential clients how they, too, might be able to stalk and hound their own customers through the use of Criteo's invasive technology. As you go to one of the websites of Criteo's advertises, you can then re-load the demo page, and then you, too, can see your very own personalized banners- on nearly every site you visit afterwards.

Before reading this article, I unknowingly experienced the same thing with an online service that I had used- afew days after using the service, I saw banner ads for it everywhere and was confused and startled by the seemingly rapid-fire spread of the site's services. I had no clue at the time that I was a victim of re-targeting advertising.