It follows that the more you search, the more valuable data you’re producing and thus, the more ads you’ll be served. For many this is a concern as the U.S. moves into election season. To learn more about private search functions in relation to political advertising, Digital Journal spoke with Robert Beens, CEO of Startpage.
Digital Journal: What types of political related things do people search for?
Robert Beens: According to Startpage’s private search engine daily search query volume statistics, more people are searching online leading up to an election year. In fact, Startpage saw a 10% increase of search query volume in 2016 compared to both 2015 and 2017. This trend continues today, as Startpage has seen a noticeable increase in search query volumes since September 2019.
Throughout the year leading to the election, people are interested in learning more about the candidates running from all parties. This means a lot of searching for: where candidates stand on certain issues, which means a lot of searching on search engines. What happens to all of that data? It gets weaponized via online campaigns and advertisements.
DJ: How do political groups target people online? Is this mostly via social media?
Beens: Advertisements were limited to newspapers, radio, and television, but in the 21st century, we’ve seen a resurgence online as search, YouTube, and social media ads. While social media (and personal DMs) continue to be a target given how popular paid social campaigns have become over the last decade, what we’re searching for on the internet highly influences these campaigns.
When we don’t use private search engines like Startpage, we open up the possibility that our search terms and queries can be used against us. When you privately search for political news, that query disappears when you’re done with searching, instead of following us around across the internet and our social profiles.
Through search engine marketing (SEM), politicians can target people based on financial terms they search for (e.g. “how to pay off student loans), health issues they search for (e.g. “treatment for drug abuse), or social issues the search for (e.g. which candidates support pro choice?). This allows politicians to target people based on their hopes, dreams and fears, and influence us without us ever knowing.
DJ: Are there concerns about how certain political adverts are targeted?
Beens: The information you search for online can be very personal. SEM targeting and profiling allows politicians to say one statement to a specific group and perhaps a different statement to another group. Advertisers of all kinds, including political campaigns, can use behavioral ads to target and re-target you based on your personal information including your finances, your interests, background and what you’re doing online. By tapping into user’s personal data, political advertisers can cater ads specifically to you and then have them follow you around on the web.
There are always concerns when our data is sold off by big tech companies. It’s never a great feeling to see our favorite websites and social media platforms littered with political advertisements based off of a search we made a week or month prior. The only way to stop politicians and political groups to target us, is to stop giving them ammunition in the first place. The easiest step is to switch over a private search engine like Startpage for your web browsing needs.
DJ: How concerned should people be about their privacy during political campaigns?
Beens: We should be extremely concerned. People’s vote should be based on their own opinion and search engines can be very manipulative with ads, targeted content and online profiling. We should always be concerned that our personal data is being saved and sold to create campaigns against us. Whether we’re planning to vote or looking to buy new shoes, our search engine shouldn’t take our daily searches and coerce us to vote for the other candidate or convince us to buy those shoes immediately because they’re now on sale.
It’s never a good feeling when the advertisements we see on the internet seem to “call out” our location and age – two identifiers that if in the wrong hands can spell trouble for your personal data (including financial information). And as we don’t know how protected politicians’ databases of information are, we should be terrified.
DJ: What types of information are political campaigners seeking?
Beens: When you use non-private search engines, you open up the opportunity to be profiled by the online services, social media platforms, helpful apps, and even the smart devices you use to access them. They have the scary ability to collect your personal data (location, search history, online activity) and store it as part of your digital profile. Using this data, they are able to assume other detailed personal data including your interests, job, income, health, political views, and more. Political campaigns have access to all of this data for a price.
Campaigns are just ONE of the groups that can access this valuable personal data, using it to target you with political ads during their campaigns. But perhaps even more concerning is that these voting influencers can “personalize” the content you see in your search results and your digital feed. What you think is “personal” may actually be a concoction of what advertisers want you to see.
DJ: How can people best protect their privacy?
Beens: People need to be aware of how, when and why their data is being saved and sold. Startpage gives people back control of the information and personal data that they give away to non-private search engines. They can search for and access information without having to pay with their privacy. The first step is to change (or take steps to change) your search engine of choice. The search engine you’re using is tracking you and selling your data. Private search engines like Startpage don’t collect or share your personal information. Ever.
At Startpage, we believe anyone in the world should be able to access information online in true privacy AND receive unprofiled news search results. We recently launched a new privacy feature, our News tab. With this feature, you can get unprofiled news search results that are identical worldwide and unaffected by browsing history or demographic profile. Changing your non-private search engine to a more private search engine like Startpage can be done in less than a minute and will have a very positive impact on your privacy.
