The Political Ad Practice Insiders Want to Keep Secret
BY Kate Kaye | Thursday, June 25 2009
Political advertisers use all sorts of data to reach specific groups of voters through Web ads. But voter file data isn't what typically comes to mind. Most political campaign insiders would like to keep it that way.
People familiar with voter file-based ad targeting say Yahoo, AOL, and MSN have all done it. However, while most online politicos have few if any qualms about privacy concerns related to using voter information for Web ad targeting (the info is all publicly available), those publisher partners seem to recognize the potential for user backlash.
Secretaries of state allow public access to voter registration data, which typically includes name, address, date of birth, political party affiliation, and indicates the elections in which a voter cast a ballot. However, the national parties both pool that information from all states, regularly update it, and append it with commercially available lifestyle data such as household income or shopping history.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties have used their massive national voter databases to target specific people through Web ads...
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