Political Parties Embrace Tracking Technologies
As the political arena gets dirtier by the day, candidates, and their parties, have embraced a new technique to find out all about you, and your political leanings. It’s true, online technologies that allow political parties to learn more about you are gaining popularity on both sides of the aisle. They include matching names from voter registration rolls with online profiles, allowing them to study what is deemed a voter’s “online body language.”
RapLeaf Inc. and AOL Inc. offer services to show ads targeted to specific groups of voters, and consultants from both parties have used RapLeaf technology in about 10 races for this year’s midterm elections.
In AOL’s case, the company matches voters with people who use AOL services, such as email or instant messaging. Information is then added to a cookie on the user’s computer, allowing the campaign to target that person with ads.
Privacy advocates argue that connecting people’s Web-browsing habits with information tied to their names is too intrusive. They cite the following examples of technologies that go too far.
Eloqua Ltd. located in Vienna, Virginia is one company behind a technology that allows political parties to analyze people’s online reading habits to understand a user’s “digital body language.” When the user enters a name or home address on a website using Eloqua technology, previously anonymous information can be matched to their name.
In addition to this, other tracking technologies target location and not personal characteristics, a practice known as geolocation. And, a company known as Lotame, Inc. can analyze the public comments people post on websites to determine voter sentiment. They maintain that anyone they monitor remains anonymous, but the ramifications of this type of information being sold or shared can have dire consequences.
The use of these types of technologies adds up to one thing, your privacy and anonymity is being attacked from every side. The only way to protect yourself is to embrace privacy technologies that allow you to remain completely anonymous and secure every time you go online. Read about Anonymizer Universal and how it can protect all your online activities today!