Imagine for a moment how you would feel if a marketer could know your interests by monitoring movement of your eyes, number of seconds your eyes linger on a certain item, photo or video, or how your pupils dilate when you see something that surprises you or makes you happy....
Did your eyes linger for a few seconds on an advertisement that, in the end, you decided not to click on? How do your eyes move as they take in the contents of a page? Are there certain words, phrases, or topics that you appear to prefer or avoid?
Today eye tracking is not ready for mass market adoption, but soon it will be. Once the technology for eye-tracking is in place, it will glean information conveying not only what we read online, but also how we read it. In the future, will we also be served online ads based not only on what we’ve shopped for, but also on the thoughts reflected in our eye movements. For me this is peak levels of invasion of privacy and I do not wish to use a computer that enables marketers to have access to this informatin, but will we have a choice?
How do you feel about this, especially if you know that information obtained and analyzed can be traced back to your eyes?
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0327_eye_tracking_villasenor.aspx
Good article! A few experts are doing research on that in the USA and Israel. We will see what will be the results in the years to come, maybe after 2020.
ReplyDeleteGreat article! I'm looking forward to some implications :).
ReplyDeleteThe fact that all our movements are tracked already, this will only amplify the 'resistance' even more. Is it possible to draw a line somewhere? Isn't creativity going to mean something in the future...ads that are so well made that they create a 'desire'. Like the 'Acura' car ads in Superbowl reaching out to a mass audience will NOT have a mass customer base, but some will surely aspire for one and manage to get to it in the future.
ReplyDeleteThere would have to be an option to turn off the eye and also some consumer benefits of you using a computer with this application, otherwise ill be wearing sunglasses!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments.
DeleteDarren- Can you imagine lying in bed late night wearing sunglasses so you can go online!!? Better still I think a new market would open up for privacy secure eye glasses. I can just see the ad-is your privacy worth one million dollars? Pay just $1000 for these special eye glasses!
As for first remark, I think this will happen in next few years, not 2020. Curious to know if Israel and America only two countries working on this. I personally doubt it. But it would have very very interesting security implications monitoring suspect terrorists.
Maybe this interesting blog today would be a nightmare tomorrow or a dream with beneficial implications where properly used. Only time will tell!
I find it incredibly difficult to imagine how a computer monitoring eye movement could have results that would be anything more than purely speculative. I question the degree of accuracy that would even be possible. How would they even begin to structure a software program to encompass the diverse needs and wants of millions of consumers based on data that has never been collected on such a highly technical area. Of course, twenty years ago, the idea of text messaging as a form of communication probably seemed impossible as well. As for privacy, there would absolutely have to be an option to turn on or off the privacy settings, and as another reply pointed out, probably incentives to participate.
ReplyDeleteHi Rima,
ReplyDeleteWhile I see your concern I am inclined to argue that the challenge put forth is not one of eye tracking technology per say, but rather one of misapplication of private data. Certainly, none seeks to have their behavioral traits based on eye movements publicly available in marketing databases, however this holds equally true for most information related to ones interactions within the private sphere. Consider searches or browsing history for example.
While obviously not a large scale public experiment, as in the article quoted such would be infeasable given current available technology, my company recently conducted a small scale test with 15 people of differing age and social status to gain insight into the commercial use of our website www.get.no (only available in Norwegian I´m afraid) utilizing eye tracking technology. On basis of these testes we were able to produce an aggregated set of user focus history enabling us to construct focus-heatmaps for each view of the website thus allowing the company extremely precise feedback on the actual use of the website (vastly superior to data gathered from the company´s regular behavior-analysis through Google Analytics).
In such eye tracking enable the interface architect to attain unfiltered feedback of not only how the user analyses and utilizes the information present but, perhaps more importantly, what information is ignored as irrelevant for the user. Given scenarios where information vital to the needs of the user falls within the later category the IA can make corrective adjustments based on the knowledge obtained and make an inherently more user-friendly experience, ultimately driving sales and conceived website relevance and satisfaction. In my point of view one gains a very unique insight which in turn is very valuable not only to the company but to the customer as well. Your thoughts?
Best
Marius
Do you think having potentially a visual tracking device/camera that is ON all the time would result in serious privacy protests?
ReplyDeleteI use the play-station MOVE and have used the XBOX kinect, and I sometimes wonder if the cameras from the consoles can be hacked and be used to invade user privacy.
Whenever I buy a new computer/laptop, the first thing I do is to disable the webcam by uninstalling it.