What is Behavioral Targeting?

Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual’s web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Behavioral marketing can be used on its own or in conjunction with other forms of targeting based on factors like geography, demographics or the surrounding content. Practitioners believe this helps them deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be influenced by them. Many online users and advocacy groups are concerned about privacy issues around doing this type of targeting. This is a controversy that the behavioral targeting industry is trying to contain through education, advocacy and product constraints to keep all information non-personally identifiable or to obtain permission from end-users.