• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 22, 2012

Asked for examples when they were personally freaked out by ads targeting them on their personal data, OMMA Data and Behavioral “Privacy” panelists had several, but my favorite was one the cited by Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

Turow said there was a period a few weeks ago in which he began noticing a flurry of online ads targeting him explicitly on the basis of his age and enticing him to go to “dating sites.”

“It occurred to me that the reason for this is one of my students is doing research on social dating sites., and as part of that, I went to some of those sites, and they were making connections based on this,” Turow said.

As bad as these connections may be online, Turow warned that it could be even worse when it migrates to television.

“In a few years, this is going to be television,” he predicted, referring to the kind of addressable TV advertising infrastructure that is being deployed and will enable marketers to target TV ads down to households, or even individuals inside those households, based on data targeting them.

“People will get different ideas about the world from television based upon what marketers know about them in their households, maybe individuals in that households. Is this the kind of world you want,” Turow asked, adding that advertisers , “have to begin to realize that there is a public interest here that they have to contend with.”

Genie Barton, Vice President and Director, Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program & Mobile Marketing Initiatives, Council of Better Business Bureaus, had a very different personal anecdote, noting that, “Every time I look at my kitchen floor I am very grateful for behavioral targeting, because that’s how I found some beautiful tiling at a wonderful price.”

Barton also said she’s experienced the flipside perspective, when behaviorally targeted data she was hoping to see, wasn’t available to her. Recently, she said she was purchasing a book on Amazon.com, and “got annoyed,” because there wasn’t any data about what other people like her who were buying the book were also reading.

“I was looking to see what in that area was being written,” she said.

Turrow said Amazon.com is a “great example,” of both the bad and the good of targeting people based on private data.

It’s good, he said, because Amazon.com “makes it seem like it’s transparent,” but then he suggested, “Check out their privacy policy. They are sharing your data and using your data in ways you’d never imagine. Pandora does the same thing.”