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Earthlink Wants More Private Info From Customers
from the block-the-others,-but-more-for-us-us-us dept
Remember earlier this year when AOL announced they were "blocking" pop up ads, and then proceeded to increase their own in-house pop up ads. It was a case where what was apparently "good" for the consumer, turned out to really be the company pushing out others to present their own marketing message. It appears AOL is not alone. Earthlink has been trying to position themselves as a friend to those who want to be left alone - by including ad blockers and spam stoppers in their offering. However, now that they've blocked out the outside advertisers, they suddenly want more information from their customers in order to better market to them themselves. I can certainly understand why they're doing this, and don't think it's necessarily bad. However, I do find the position to be a bit at odds with the image they've been trying to portray.
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I may be the exception rather than the rule but I really don't mind advertising that targetted at me as long as it's targetted correctly. I've pursued a small number of advertisements that were exactly what I could use but would never have found them on my own much less even looked for them.
I don't mind providing personnel info as long as it's used correctly. I think (strange thought) that maybe pop-ups or SPAM might be okay if it identified where it got your address from and WHY they thought you might want to receive it. THEN if it's totally out to lunch, you not only have the option to opt out of that particular advertising line but also contact whoever gave out your information and have yourself removed from that list as well. Seems then, the folks who have your information would treat it properly for fear of losing it and advertiser would be more willing to pay for lists which have a high retention rate.
Damn, that almost makes sense.
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