We must think carefully about targeted adverts

Targeted advertisements

Our computers and smartphones keep small pieces of information called cookies, which tell websites where we’ve been online and what we were looking at. Cookies are meant to make it easier for us to find what we are interested in, but they also help advertisers to sell things to us. So, when we see an advert for something that seems to be exactly what we want, it is because advertisers know what we like. This kind of advertising is called targeted advertising.

OMG! You are targeted!

Sometimes advertisers know where you like to go and when you like to do things, so they can advertise to you when you are most interested. For example, they advertise places to eat when you’re hungry. They can also send adverts to your friends at the same time if they think you’ll go together. Sometimes it’s easy to see that something is an advert, like those large banner adverts that always seem to appear on websites when you’re trying to read. And there are adverts that seem to appear in the strangest places, like the small sponsored adverts that you find in search results.

Perhaps ads are honest, yet we need to be more and more careful. When you see an advert online, think about why you might be seeing it and whether you can believe what it says.