Thread · 2 tweets · 28 Mar 2021

Targeting is an efficiency outcome. There are many ways to achieve it. I may know that a given page is read overwhelmingly by women 35-50. Advertisers can target that without knowing anything about the people who get to see the ads.

Surveillance is a method. Applied to advertising, it involves knowing as much as possible about individuals. Typically, this uses shared ids (that also match PII if that's your concern) and knowledge about behaviour eg. across all sites, across all movement, or all purchases.