readings for sept 23rd.

EA comes under fire for Shady PR stunts: http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/09/11/1610252/EA-Comes-Under-Fire-for-Shady-PR-Stunts?from=rss

EA has been using PR stunts that are very questionable too the public. Dante's Inferno, a game based on the book, was created to have a very anti christian overtone. Many christians, gamers and not found this offensive. But as the fight rose about the game, so did it's popularity. During their time at Comic-Con, they had a contest where you took pictures of yourself commiting "lustful acts" with Booth Babes, and the best one would recieve a date with two models, limo ride, paparazzi and a "chest full of booty." Ironically, the contest winner was from a magazine called "Gay Gamer" as he took a picture with a booth guy to prove a point. EA is targeting the wrong audience with their advertising, and instead of blowing tons of money on PR, they could be putting that money towards a great game. Something EA has lacked for a while.

Ads follow web users, get more personal: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/media/31privacy.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1251554625-Y3+OaLtsQzyPS0jcTZtEVg

Using cookies, companies are now customizing advertising by evaluating information you release onto your computer. By collecting this data, the cookies then use your likes and dislikes as a key and lock system, only catering to your absolute interests. for investing companies, this starts to take out the guesswork of where they will want to place ads. Unfortunately, using the internet makes it virtually impossible to go online without getting cookies. Though this may be seen as an imposition of privacy, the government has chosen so far to accept this form of advertising.
"Consumers can avoid cookie-based tracking by deleting cookies from their computers or setting their browsers not to accept cookies. But few do, and privacy advocates say it is easy for companies to add cookies without users noticing."
That excerpt has me wondering how much longer it will be before we end up giving our information away the moment we turn our computer on. In a small matter of time we'll end up with overflows of ads and will be begging for some sort of relief from the onslaught we try to avoid in our life (you may notice the amount of ads in radio/tv...) Someone will have to make an ad blocker, companies will try to ban it, and it'll be up to the government to say yes or no. Unfortuneately we won't be able to decide.