Customer Match: Google announced the availability of a new tool on the official Adwords blog that allows companies to target users based on their email addresses.
The new system, called Customer Match, works in the following way.
Companies upload the email addresses they want to target with their Google ads online. For example, they can upload emails from a portion of their customer base.
This way, companies can gain new precise targeting capabilities provided that the emails.
Google says that the matching is done with “privacy in mind,” but it doesn’t explain what that means, and how it can serve personally targeted ads without violating the privacy of the recipient.
The new Customer Match feature, if you haven't figured it out already, will allow companies to target new customers by finding emails they don't have. This means that the new feature incentivizes illegal email address marketing.
Or even worse, think about what material for new clients a company can find from emails leaked after a hack.
It should be noted that this time Google is not leading the way. It is not the only company that allows advertisers to target users with their email address.
Facebook and Twitter do the same, but limit advertisers to just one product, while Google offers the new advertising program across many different platforms.
The company allows you to opt-out of targeted ads from your account settings. However, this does not mean that it stops tracking your interests or that it cannot identify you with your online identity, since you must be logged in to view your Gmail.
Of course, for the feature we described above, blocking targeted ads will be much more difficult.
Let's see how privacy groups react...
