Turns out, young adults don’t like targeted online marketing after all. According to a survey from professors at University of Pennsylvania and and the University of California-Berkeley, no age demographic appears to be keen on the idea of tracking Internet consumption–Millennials are no exception. This New York Times’ article tells the story:
Marketers often use teenagers’ behavior on Facebook as anecdotal evidence that they do not mind handing over information. But 55 percent of respondents from 18 to 24 objected to tailored advertising.
The survey is billed as the first independent survey to attempt to learn the preferences of America regarding the tracking of consumers via marketing companies. As noted in the survey’s overview, the issue over targeted marketing has recently become a hot topic:
Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66%) do not want marketers to
tailor advertisements to their interests. Moreover, when Americans are informed of three common
ways that marketers gather data about people in order to tailor ads, even higher percentages—
between 73% and 86%–say they would not want such advertising.These are two findings from the first nationally representative telephone (wireline and cell phone)
survey to explore Americans’ opinions about behavioral targeting by marketers, a controversial issue
currently before government policymakers. Behavioral targeting involves two types of activities:
following users’ actions and then tailoring advertisements for the users based on those actions.
While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in
ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives
Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their
lives as possible.