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November 21, 2019 09:50 pm PST

"Out of Home Advertising": the billboards that spy on you as you move through public spaces

Outdoor advertising companies are tapping location data brokers like Placeiq (which aggregates location data leaked by the spying dumpster-fire that is your phone's app ecosystem) and covertly siting Bluetooth and wifi sniffers in public space to gather data on the people who pass near to billboards: "gender, age, race, income, interests, and purchasing habits."

This data is used to modify digital billboards, both in realtime (changing the ads based on who is currently present), and in aggregate (changing which ads run when, based on the typical profile of people near a location at a given time).

The outdoor ad brokers also sell your data to online ad brokers, who chase you around the internet with the ads you've walked past that morning, and they buy your purchase data to see whether you've bought the things that were advertised to you.

The good news is that opting out is easy! Just stop ever leaving your house, never use the internet, and stop buying things.

Five Tiers Frank OBrien says that, just like every other industry, the out-of-home advertising business should be regulated. But for now, if youre not comfortable with how out-of-home advertising uses your information, you dont have much recourse. I don't think theres anything you can do about it, he says.

In the meantime, out-of-home advertising is charging ahead. Last summer, Adomni ran a campaign for the Ultimate Fighting Championship based on the daily travel patterns of consumers singled out as potential fans. Over the past year in Buffalo, N.Y., Lamar targeted consumers exposed to out-of-home advertising for Tim Hortons restaurants with additional ads on their mobile devices.

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Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/UFQ2DelyOyo/to-opt-out-just-die-4.html

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