Just for
you.
As long ago as a decade I remember hearing people in my classes exclaim that it
must be terribly expensive for an Israeli company to advertise online in Hebrew,
asking whether it was really worth such an investment considering the rather limited
Hebrew reading public.
Remarks of this sort offered me the opportunity to delve into some of the more
fascinating aspects of the web, to explain (at least in non-technical terms) that
when we established digital contact with a web site we were visiting we were also
identifying ourselves - where we were located, what sort of computer we were using,
which site we'd arrived from, and more. But though this was a technical explanation
that ostensibly showed that we were only being profiled, not actually "identified",
it didn't alter our perception that someone or something was catering to us, that
someone had our needs, perhaps even out own best interests,
in mind when certain information was displayed for us. And of course since then
things have only "improved" so that Google is able to scan the contents
of mail and deliver us advertisements that sometimes even cause us to ask if perhaps
there's actually a real, skin and bones person on the other side of the box.
Go to: Taking it personally.