I found this website really weird, with no "About us", so I searched some more.
"Elliot Shefler" (some publications put his name in quotes) is a co-founder, but he does not want to appear in photos and online profiles himself. He is Turkish-Jewish and spent most of his life working in ad-tech and online gambling. He claims his algorithms were developed by an agency with links to the Israeli military (this is repurposed military/PSYOP technology?). His whereabouts are unknown, circling between Germany, London, and LA.
In 2018 the price was 29$, now its 49$. Elliot claims $5.1 million revenue for 2018. Most customers are men, most customers want to initiate sex with a target. Nobody follows up to complain if it wasn't successful, since they are very much part of the conspiracy to manipulate. Elliot plans to share information with bigger advertisers: "A woman who wants a target to propose to her, would be in great proximity to a person that is in the market for an engagement ring".
This service is illegal in Europe, due to data protection and anti-tracking laws. The site has about 10 employees and one British company who works the contracts with bigger companies.
> “The value is in retention, not in the acquisition,” he said.
> He related a story about one insurance company he was commissioned work on, where he would target the insurance agents at the company to “brainwash and manipulate” them and change the perception of the company itself with the goal of retaining those agents.
> “We planned a similar campaign with a big pharmaceutical company that was targeting doctors (not patients—doctors) with articles about the benefits of a certain medicine.”
> ... if he feels the same targeting tools he leverages for The Spinner could be vulnerable to possible misuse, his response was matter-of-fact:
> “I would prefer using the word “effective” instead of ‘vulnerable.’ The answer is: highly effective.”
Just make it illegal to target ads based on the people viewing them. You can still target to things like contexts, venues, areas, etc. but it would rule this out and it would eliminate the justification to farm so much personal info.
I too am in favor of bankrupting Google and returning to the old model of advertising where you put the car ads on car magazines and computer ads on computer magazines.
I think we can agree that this site's existence is overall a good thing for privacy and security awareness. More people will look into how targeted advertising on the web works.
It's very creepy but relatively harmless. It's simply democratizing what anyone can do with a bit of effort thanks to ad networks.
Whoever controls the ad networks themselves however, can achieve far more invasive and nefarious things.
Those are a far more dangerous threats to individual freedom than the distrust in ads and random web articles that this site could cause.
"Elliot Shefler" (some publications put his name in quotes) is a co-founder, but he does not want to appear in photos and online profiles himself. He is Turkish-Jewish and spent most of his life working in ad-tech and online gambling. He claims his algorithms were developed by an agency with links to the Israeli military (this is repurposed military/PSYOP technology?). His whereabouts are unknown, circling between Germany, London, and LA.
In 2018 the price was 29$, now its 49$. Elliot claims $5.1 million revenue for 2018. Most customers are men, most customers want to initiate sex with a target. Nobody follows up to complain if it wasn't successful, since they are very much part of the conspiracy to manipulate. Elliot plans to share information with bigger advertisers: "A woman who wants a target to propose to her, would be in great proximity to a person that is in the market for an engagement ring".
This service is illegal in Europe, due to data protection and anti-tracking laws. The site has about 10 employees and one British company who works the contracts with bigger companies.
> “The value is in retention, not in the acquisition,” he said.
> He related a story about one insurance company he was commissioned work on, where he would target the insurance agents at the company to “brainwash and manipulate” them and change the perception of the company itself with the goal of retaining those agents.
> “We planned a similar campaign with a big pharmaceutical company that was targeting doctors (not patients—doctors) with articles about the benefits of a certain medicine.”
> ... if he feels the same targeting tools he leverages for The Spinner could be vulnerable to possible misuse, his response was matter-of-fact:
> “I would prefer using the word “effective” instead of ‘vulnerable.’ The answer is: highly effective.”
Very, very shady.