Web advertising and marketing company DoubleClick Inc. at the end of last year dropped its Intelligent Targeting service, which tracked Web browsing habits with the intention of funneling targeted advertising reflecting a Web viewer"s personal interests.
The New York-based company said, "Given the focus of our business, we have decided that the Intelligent Targeting product is not something we plan to pursue in today"s environment."
Intelligent Targeting enabled advertisers to send ads to consumers who indicated a specific interest area, through either recent or frequent visits to particular types of Web sites, according to a description of the service on the DoubleClick Web site. The service tracked Web clickstream information.
DoubleClick isn"t focusing on this particular technology and isn"t dedicating resources to it, a company spokesperson said.
An analyst offered a differing view, however. Intelligent Targeting was "too much Big Brother," said Rob Enderle, a research fellow at Giga Information Group Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.
"Users didn"t like the fact that they were being tracked, so at the end of the day, the technology got a bad name," Enderle said.(So.. this is how long it took them to realized that? -Ed) "I think it became very difficult for retailers to use the technology, primarily because it gave them a bad name by association."