The Filter Bubble - Eli Pariser [48]
Consider the implications, for example, of knowing that particular customers compulsively buy things when stressed or when they’re feeling bad about themselves, or even when they’re a bit tipsy. If persuasion profiling makes it possible for a coaching device to shout “you can do it” to people who like positive reinforcement, in theory it could also enable politicians to make appeals based on each voter’s targeted fears and weak spots.
Infomercials aren’t shown in the middle of the night only because airtime then is cheap. In the wee hours, most people are especially suggestible. They’ll spring for the slicer-dicer that they’d never purchase in the light of day. But the three A.M. rule is a rough one—presumably, there are times in all of our daily lives when we’re especially inclined to purchase whatever’s put in front of us. The same data that provides personalized content can be used to allow marketers to find and manipulate your personal weak spots. And this isn’t a hypothetical possibility: Privacy researcher Pam Dixon discovered that a data company called PK List Management offers a list of customers titled “Free to Me—Impulse Buyers”; those listed are described as being highly susceptible to pitches framed as sweepstakes.
If personalized persuasion works for products, it can also work for ideas. There are undoubtedly times and places and styles of argument that make us more susceptible to believe what we’re told. Subliminal messaging is illegal because we recognize there are some ways of making an argument that are essentially cheating; priming people with subconsciously flashed words to sell them things isn’t a fair game. But it’s not such a stretch to imagine political campaigns targeting voters at times when they can circumvent our more reasonable impulses.
We intuitively understand the power in revealing our deep motivations and desires and how we work, which is why most of us only do that in day-to-day life with people whom we really trust. There’s a symmetry to it: You know your friends about as well as they know you. Persuasion profiling, on the other hand, can be done invisibly—you need not have any knowledge that this data is being collected from you—and therefore it’s asymmetrical. And unlike some forms of profiling that take place in plain sight (like Netflix), persuasion profiling is handicapped when it’s revealed. It’s just not the same to hear an automated coach say “You’re doing a great job! I’m telling you that because you respond well to encouragement!”
So you don’t necessarily see the persuasion profile being made. You don’t see it being used to influence your behavior. And the companies we’re turning over this data to have no legal obligation to keep it to themselves. In the wrong hands, persuasion profiling gives companies the ability to circumvent your rational decision making, tap into your psychology, and draw out your compulsions. Understand someone’s identity, and you’re better equipped to influence what he or she does.
A Deep and Narrow Path
Someday soon, Google Vice President Marissa Mayer says, the company hopes to make the search box obsolete. “The next step of search is doing this automatically,” Eric Schmidt said in 2010. “When I walk down the street, I want my smartphone to be doing searches constantly—‘did you know?’ ‘did you know?’ ‘did you know?’ ‘did you know?’ ” In other words, your phone should figure out what you would like to be searching for before you do.
In the fast-approaching age of search without search, identity drives media. But the personalizers