PoP_chapter_5
Surveillance Advertising Takes Shape.

dateline note: in 1998, Google had indexed 60M pages, but is still not “dominant.” The Brin and Page tried to SELL GOOGLE to Excite for $1M. Excite turned them down.

1998 Summer Advert conference: coordinate a unified strategy to wring greater efficiency from Internet advert industry. 400 competitors working together. 

Click through rates still dropping, ads sold on impressions, not clicks

Wanting to move FROM advertising at people to “managing customer relationships.”

By 1998 the bubble of inflated value was evident.

All comers tried to move to platform monopoly. Ad networks (double click) as one-stop-advert-shops for all sides of the business.

“called protoplatformization, constructing a sociotechnical called protoplatformization, constructing a sociotechnical“ (Page 96). Microsoft served as a good model

Crack open the ad network so that ads could be offered, and data collected ACROSS MULTIPLE NETWORKS. Leave NO advert space unfilled.

FlyCast develops an auction for un-used inventory

1999: Double Click advances re-marketing (following customers with adverts)

CMGI starts doing “off-boarding”/closing the online/off line loop by partnering with Experian (one of the “BIG THREE” credit bureaus). Double Click answers by buying Abacus. Acxiom (on of the “BIG THREE” credit bureaus) gets into the act with Info-Base Ethnicity System.

Behavioral profiling is qualitatively and quantitatively different than demographic analysis.
Demographics become personal profiles; personal profiles become data dossiers. The digital enclosure where every action generates information about itself. 

It became difficult for marketers/advertising functionaries to not participate.

The web of the late 1990s became a surveillance free-for-all as monitoring exploded without regard for consumer awareness, let alone consent.

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and Yet, the really BIGGEST FISH WASN’T YET EVEN SWIMMING IN THE POOL

dateline note: By 2000, Google was starting to sell adverts based on keywords

Google “appropriated” their model for selling terms from Goto.com/Overtture Services. Overture sued, won, but Yahoo bought Overture and traded a perpetual license for Google shares. Google and Yahoo dissolved their agreement in 2004. 

Google’s IPO was in 2004; Google did not use 3rd party cookies until 2007 when it bought Double Click for $3.1B