How often have you come across an ad for a product that you cannot afford? For example say you’re searching for cameras and your intention is to buy a camera under $300, but instead you come across ads for cameras such as Leicas or high-end DSLRs which are way out of your price range. It doesn’t make sense, right?However it seems that Apple has a plan for that which is to create a method of serving up ads to users for products they think these users might be able to afford. So how would this work? According to the patent filed by Apple in March 2015, “The common profile of users may be based on the amount of pre-paid credit available to each user.”
Essentially it sounds like Apple will base these ads on tracking your credit/debit cards and checking your bank balance, so based on your spending habits and how much money you actually have in terms of credit limit and account balance, the system will know what kind of ads might better suit you.
It sounds a bit invasive but according to Apple, “An advantage of such targeted advertising is that only advertisements for goods and services which particular users can afford, are delivered to these users.” Given how Apple has in the past adamantly stated that they are not in the business of selling customer information, it is unclear as how this would work.
We can only assume that ad companies will need to know what kind of ads to create to target different demographics, so unless Apple decides to share that information, perhaps ad agencies will just create a variety of ads, send them to Apple who will then disseminate them based on the system, without any actual information being shared with the advertisers.
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