digital divide network - article database

This is a scenario not too far from the distant future. As you steps into your nearby supermarket or shopping mall, a text message arrives on your cell phone with a complete list of shopping items for you to consider. A shopping list from your wife? No, it is a list by the courtesy of Google, your friendly neighborhood who is always more than keen to be of help. That is correct. Search advertising and online advertising is big business and search engines are in a race to partner up with cell phone manufacturers and service providers to deliver to your mobile device items and messages that ring familiar to you. What else you would think understands more about where you frequently hang out, where you shop and what items you usually buy? It is the search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook. Intrusion of privacy and foul play you might scream, but with the billions of dollars of online advertising in the pipeline, your privacy concerns would be the last thing any of these corporations would be thinking about. What even surprises some people is that when a searcher or surfer of the web clicks on any of the displayed ads, a certain amount of charge will be incurred and deducted from the advertisers account. An innocuous click as it may seem, is in effect putting money into the pockets of search giants like Google. Advertisers want the exposure, and pays for it. In keywords advertising or 關鍵字廣告, searches on the internet are similarly taken to websites touting products and services and in the same way, businesses pay for the advertising exposure. The future of online advertising is anybody's guess, but the battle for dominance will not be limited to mobile devices, as search operators target our familiar living room preoccupation, the television. Coach potatoes who view programs will be served with ads that are tailored to their specific needs, and yes, a single click will add more money into the coffers of advertisement platform providers like search engines. The concern though, is not so much as to the pervasively of ads targeting our every move. It is the background technology that enables the tracking of our browsing habits and our buying habits that seems ominous at best. It is certainly unsettling to most that we are been watched not just for the purpose of serving ads to us, but also that such information are readily made available to governments who have a purpose that is more sinister than merely looking out for the money in our pockets.