Making a key big data move, Comcast has quietly scooped up a small video metadata specialist to delve deeper into the programming that it delivers, improving the viewing experience for subscribers while opening up possible new advertising revenue opportunities for the giant US MSO. 

Mattel, Inc., the leading global childhood play and development company, today announced a new strategic partnership with Alibaba Group, the world's largest online and mobile commerce company. Leveraging Mattel's iconic brands and expertise in play as well as Alibaba's wealth of data and insights into the Chinese consumer base, the expanded partnership aims to re-shape the way parents in China think about play.

After a long and fair rulemaking process during most of 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted ground-breaking privacy rules last October protecting the personal information of broadband Internet service customers. Both industry—including powerful phone and cable companies that provide the majority of broadband connections—as well as consumer, civil rights, and privacy groups, had ample opportunity to make their case—which they did.

Statement of Jeff Chester, Executive Director
Center for Digital Democracy
February 7, 2017

This is a case study of Facebook's work for Judicial Watch illustrating how the media, digital advertising & social networking company uses micro-targeting and tracking for political causes. 

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Established in 1994, Judicial Watch is a conservative non-partisan government watchdog organization that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and law. It has filed lawsuits against the last several US presidential administrations.

Personality models 

As described in Personality Insights basics, Personality Insights analytics are developed based on the psychology of language in combination with data analytics algorithms. The characteristics are described in terms of three models:

• Big Five

AudiencePredictor™ and AudienceExcluder™ 

Pursue your best audiences by utilizing The Trade Desk’s proprietary targeting algorithms. AudiencePredictor™ employs third party data to identify users who fit your ideal voter profiles.  

Politics is about fundraising, message management, and getting out the vote. Using Semcasting voter history data, the Smart Zones platform has been optimized to support voter registration goals and donor profiling, and identify and to target activist interests and propensities, such as participating in a GOTV program or attending a town hall meeting.

The ease of promoting and profiting from fake news, the use of social media to spread disinformation and twist the truth and the ability to microtarget voters on all their devices reveal how political campaigns and special-interest groups are taking full advantage of the “Big Data”-driven digital marketing system that Google and Facebook have helped unleash. Campaigns now have needle-in-the-haystack capabilities, provided by commercial marketing and media companies, to find and motivate an individual voter.