[ajkohn]

When you ask someone whether they want their search results or ads to reflect their browse and search history they say no but when presented with the two options, users nearly always select the personalized version.

Remarketing works. It's not what people say, it's what they do.

And why shouldn't it be that way. I go to a local Peet's. They know my order now. Is that bad? Should I tell the barista to wipe my order history out of her memory?

I'm not saying there isn't a issue of privacy but the line is not where most think it is IMO. People are very willing to give out personal information in exchange for a chance to win a car in the local mall.

Taken in another direction: product. Users often don't express their real needs or can't identify them. One of the more interesting cases was the introduction of the mini-van. It tested miserably when they asked users. But Ford (I think it was Ford) decided to go ahead anyway and ... users wound up LOVING it.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I don't think people understand what Google is doing though. Your results may look very different once everybody understands the extent of Googles data collection.

This is very new territory still. I don't think we can predict what is going to happen if there is some massive repository of personal data that lives forever. So I'd rather we going at it with baby steps.

[ajkohn]

It's interesting. Sometimes the argument is that people are more savvy than we give them credit for and then it's that they don't really understand.

I'm not saying you're doing this now (not at all), but I do see people trying to have it both ways when talking about this issue.

The thing is, I'm old so I worked offline before the Internet. The personal information that is accessible offline is ... incredible, even to this day. It's what has powered the direct marketing revolution for decades.

So while I don't think people understand the details of how things work online I think they have an intuitive sense that the same way they get targeted offline is what happens to them online.

Facebook is actually letting people marry the offline and online information which I find super intriguing yet goes relatively unnoticed.

And I'm still shocked that we willingly present ID when we buy something with a credit card since we're not really required to do so.

Going slow wouldn't be a bad thing but I actually think we've been doing that already.