Clear Channel Outdoor, one of the world’s largest billboard companies, will in coming days roll out technology across Europe capable of letting advertisers know where people go and what they do after seeing a particular billboard.
Well,
brace yourself. Clear Channel has been quietly using this technology in
the United States for the last four years, including in Los Angeles.
“They’re spying on you in your own neighborhood,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
“You don’t know it’s happening,” he told me. “You don’t know who they’re sharing the information with.”
Chester
and other privacy advocates said Clear Channel’s system is an example
of how private companies are building out commercial surveillance
networks right under our noses. more
