21. Privacy

One of the biggest criticisms of early attempts at personalized advertising has been the creep factor, which many describe as the ad that “follows you,” with an intimate knowledge of what you have done or what you have browsed online. This has always been a challenging aspect of technologies and methods that attempt to use information to create a better experience for consumers.

A recent incident illustrating this involved the much-beloved and sometimes-reviled cab-hailing service Uber. An executive of Uber was supposed to meet a reporter for an interview. As soon as she walked into Uber’s offices, she immediately saw the executive come down the stairs as if he knew the precise moment when she would arrive. Actually, he did. As he ...

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