Boarding Pass Ads and Privacy Worries

Targeting demographics is exactly what every advertiser does. That’s why you usually don’t see ads for a BMW on daytime Cartoon Network. Considering the amount of information available via the Internet, that they are targeting demographics doesn’t really bother me. Of course I used to work in the media industry, so maybe I’ve become immune to the demographic targeting dilemma.

I Agree whith CF. if they put an ad Marriot Hotel (Your Destination Here) i have no problem

Cookie tracking isn’t quite as Tim makes it out. The mere fact that someone visits, say ESPN which presumably sets a cookie, and then goes to CNN, doesn’t mean that CNN knows this. Cookies set by espn.com are only accessible to espn.com.

Where things get interesting though is the cookies set by the third party advertising companies (DoubleClick, etc). Since those are set by DoubleClick’s servers, DoubleClick can see them whenever you visit a site that uses their services. Thus, DoubleClick would know that you visited both EPSN and CNN and could give you sports ads on CNN.

This is why I recommend enabling the option to block cookies from third party sites in Firefox and Safari (I don’t think IE has it but people shouldn’t be using IE anyway, and I don’t know about Opera), since this prevents advertisers like DoubleClick from setting cookies. Many of the advertising companies also offer an opt out service which sets a cookie that has something like “OPT OUT” instead of a unique number.

IP tracking also doesn’t always provide reliable geographic information. While many ISPs do assign IP addresses that are regionally grouped, others don’t. AOL comes to mind as the most prominent example I can think of for ISPs in the latter group.

I love this qoute:

“Our focus group research has continually shown that passengers love the concept and praise the airlines for providing this innovative offering,” said Gordon Whitten, the founder of Sojern and former Ernst and Young Midwest Technology Entrepreneur of the Year.”

It sounds like the they researched until they found the answer they wanted. (Or just made it up.) No one is that enthusiastic.

I don’t care for this advertising – but on this on I’m more indifferent. I never use my boarding pass for anything more than a bookmark. Unless the ad was for a free steak dinner I don’t think it will influence anything I would do or purchase upon arrival in a new city, or back home.

I’m going to laugh when I start seeing boarding passes with ads for local adult entertainment venues.

I think they can target with the ads without too much specific information. For example, elite members of FF programs might get different ads. Those using corporate booking tools might see something else, maybe the advertises will hope those on an expense account will spend some extra cash. If a hotel is booked through the airline, perhaps ads for businesses closer to the hotel will show up.

Finally, the overview PDF says that users can edit their preferences for what the want to see, for what it’s worth.

David touches on a key point.. I don’t see why its worth it for me to check in online versus at a kiosk — its just something more to do before I leave home, and uses my paper instead of the airline’s paper.

Sure I’ll use my paper if it gives me something, but as one of those strange people who still checks luggage, it doesn’t save me much if any time to print my boarding pass up in advance.

For what it’s worth, the Advertising Age article on this (http://adage.com/article?article_id=129637) does say passengers will have the choice to print out the boarding pass sans ads.

As a commuter myself, if advertising inside and outside the airplane can keep the airlines from folding and help keep the cost of my tickets down, I am all for it. It will be a sad day if we are reliant on one government run airline because all the private ones have gone under.