Eating Cookies and Not Behaving

Behavioral advertising, which uses personal data to algorithmically tailor ads just for you, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, according to researchers from U Minnesota, UC Irvine, and Carnegie Mellon.

The key numbers: Over one week, revenue from cookie-enabled targeted ad impressions was just 4% higher than revenue from traditional ad impressions without the tracking tech, the WSJ writes. Yet advertisers are willing to pay 2.68x more for the former.

Critics argue behavioral advertising kills privacy, while supporters say it brings in higher revenue. But this research suggests the lift is too small to justify the high premiums advertisers are paying...not to mention the privacy tradeoffs and that creepy feeling you get when you’re served an ad for that webcam cover you were just talking about.

Why it matters: This study demonstrates that advertisers are shelling out $100 for deluxe cookies that are really just repackaged Famous Amos. If true, it’d be bad news for Google and Facebook, the AI-loving data behemoths holding the keys to the ad kingdom.