I use Google's gmail. On the inbox screen there's an unobtrusive advertisement line, presumably, given Google sophistication, targeted in accordance with usage patterns. Well, I don't know. I opened and read a Google Alert on "Anoka County" as the term set for the alert, and on returning to the inbox, I got this ad.
Okay, it's always good to know a specialist lawyer if you ever need the speciality, but was the targeting on me, or on "Anoka County?" I'd have to think the latter, since I've never had a DWI and never searched the web much that way.
Second piece of evidence: I went to the spam queue, and emptied it. On returning to the inbox, this was the "targeting" ad.
Okay, there's a twisted tie-in this time, but Recipe Source, as a website that would advertise and make cash off its posting recipes such as "Savory Spam Crescents," I don't know, but Monty Python's Flying Circus might find a skit in it.
And if you doubt Google and its algorithms, what next, denial of divine creation or even denial of intelligent design? It could snowball.
Has anyone else curiously tried one of those Gmail target ads, trying to find rhyme or reason to it? Post a comment.