Use Cases

"Shamanic healing" ad targets depression keyword in my inbox?!

XRay can be used to increase user awareness about how their data is being used, as well as provide much needed tools for auditors seeking to keep that use under scrutiny (e.g., FTC investigators, researchers, or journalists). You can find some powerful example use cases we envision XRay supporting in the future here.

This page shows some example associations and some of their high-level implications. Our purpose is to illustrate through examples the great potential inherent in the targeting data XRay is gathering.

Example Associations

The table below shows examples of topic/ad correlations XRay made. For each topic, we were tracking targeting of an email containing keywords related to that topic (e.g., the depression-related email included depression, depressed, and sad). We used XRay to detect correlation between emails and ads. Conservatively, we only show here correlations that were very strong. We think we can already formulate some example-driven observations:

Obs. 1: It is definitely possible to target sensitive topics in users’ inboxes: Most of the topics we tracked could be considered sensitive (e.g., various diseases, pregnancy, race, sexual orientation, divorce, loans, etc.); they all got ads. A shamanic healing ad appears exclusively in accounts containing the depression-related email, and many times in its context; ads for assisted living services strongly correlates with the Alzheimer email; and a Ford campaign to fight breast cancer correlates with the cancer email. See other examples in the table.

Obs. 2: Targeting is often obscure and potentially dangerous: Look at many of the ads in the table; is their targeting obvious to you? We don’t think so. For example, nothing in the shamanic healing ad suggests association with the depression keyword. In such cases, users might click on an ad not realizing they might be disclosing private information to advertisers. Imagine an insurance company wanting to learn about pre-existing conditions of its customers before signing them up. The company could create two ad campaigns, one targeting cancer and the other youth, and assign different URLs to each campaign. It could then offer higher premium quotes to users coming in from the cancer-related ads to discourage them from signing up while offering lower premium quotes to people coming in from the youth-related ads.

Obs. 3: XRay can signal potential data abuses: We all know that obscurity can breed abuse. Thus far, revealing data abuse in large systems like Gmail’s ad ecosystem has been next to impossible, because society lacked tools for revealing such abuse. Our experience with XRay suggests that it can help change this situation by enabling investigators to obtain quantified hints for data abuses, which they can then use as grounds for full-fledged investigations. Just by peeking at the targeting data we have seen some signs of abuse, whereby vulnerable populations being targeted with ads for questionable services.

As an example, we have seen signs of what could be subprime targeting. According to a recent NYT article, our society is undergoing a subprime loan bubble for used cars. In our dataset, we’ve come across a number of loan ads for buying used cars that promised 100% acceptance without credit checks. Many of these strongly correlated with the presence of keywords such as debt, borrow, or loan in user inboxes. For example, in the table below, you can see a car dealership ad that entices users to take a Toyota test drive for $50 strongly; that ad correlates with the debt keyword. XRay cannot confirm whether the ad correlations with debt-related keywords were the result of intentional targeting of debt-ridden populations by the lenders, however the example does illustrate how XRay can be used to discover interesting trends and help obtain quantitative support for them.

The Table:

Topic Ad Text
Alzheimer Black Mold Allergy Symptoms? Expert to remove Black Mold.
Alzheimer Adult Assisted Living. Affordable assisted Living.
Cancer Ford Warriors in Pink. Join the fight.
Cancer Rosen Method Bodywork for physical or emotional pain.
Depression Shamanic healing over the phone.
Depression Text Coach - Get the girl you want and desire.
African American Racial Harassment? Learn your rights now.
African American Racial Harassment. Hearing racial slurs?
Homosexuality SF Gay Pride Hotel. Luxury Waterfront.
Homosexuality Cedars Hotel Loughborough. 36 Bedrooms, restaurant, bar.
Pregnancy Find Baby Shower Invitations. Get up to 60% off here!
Pregnancy Ralph Lauren Apparel. Official online store.
Pregnancy Bonobos Official Site. Your closet will thank you.
Pregnancy Clothing Label-USA. Best custom woven labels.
Divorce Law Attorneys specializing in special needs kids education.
Divorce Cerbone Law Firm. Helping good people thru bad times.
Debt/broke Take a New Toyota Test Drive. Get a $50 gift card on the spot.
Debt/broke Great Credit Card Search. Apply for VISA, Mastercard...
Loan Car Loan without Cosigner 100% Accepted. [...].
Loan Car Loans w/ Bad Credit 100% Acceptance! [...].

Note: We report these examples results not to point fingers at Gmail or any advertisers; indeed, the lack of transparency is a pervasive and difficult problem. Rather, we aim to illustrate the dangers raised by the lack of transparency in targeted ad placement and hopefully bolster a conversation about how to go about improving this situation over time.