Media: Web Informant looks at Pinpointing Users' Locations

Companies knowing the location of their online users cuts both ways argues David Strom - better service provision, but less privacy, in "We know where you live".

'Web site operators are getting better at figuring out where you live and what your interests are, all in the process of better targeting their advertising and content. And while on the surface that sounds like a welcome development, like anything else on the Internet it has a dark side as well. The trick will be how the good and the bad balance out in the coming months ahead,' argues Strom.

This comes about through the confluence of two technologies: improved geolocation, tracking down internet users by postcode and other location-specific data, including improved mapping of IP addresses, coupled with clickstream analysis, or the ability of a site operator to figure out what a particular user is doing on their site. 'Again, the key here is being able to track a particular IP address of a user as they move about your Web site, and bundling together all those page views into a coherent picture of what each individual is doing.'

He describes how the Wall Street Journal Online does this. 'Each subscriber to the online edition is placed in one of eight categories automatically by associating various pages that they visit on the site with the topical focus of the category. The categories are car buffs, techies, investors, heath nuts, leisure, mutual funds, opinion leaders and travel. An advertiser can design their own category based on custom criteria of the user's clickstream.' Strom points out how different targetting adverts at types of behaviour is from merely putting adverts on relevant popular pages.

His concern, as others' does, revolves round abuse of all this personal information.

Associated Link: Web Informant: We know where you live

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