In Their Own Words: Are targeted advertisements weird?

“When I go online shopping, I think it’s weird to see an advertisement on the side of my Quizlet. I think that technology should be [improved] to give us more privacy.”

“I feel like it’s interesting to see that [ad networks] are able to take our search history and suggest things they think we should buy. At the same time, it [makes me] uneasy that they are accessing our search history in the first place.”

“[Ad targeting] kind of freaks me out. Last night, I was looking up clothing online, and then before bed, I was on Facebook, and I saw two ads for the website I was [previously] on. It makes me feel like there are people watching what I look up, and that’s kind of terrifying.”

“It makes me pretty uncomfortable because sometimes, I will just be doing homework, and I will look something up pertaining to [my work], and later it will pop up elsewhere. In that sense, [ads] are very useful but also creepy.”

“It depends on the product. I was searching for a sweatshirt, and an ad showed up 0n Instagram with multiple choices; I thought this was fine. If I am searching for personal items and have ads targeted toward those products, that’s when I get creeped out. There should be a limit.”