Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier

Online marketers are increasingly seeking to track users offline, as well, by collecting data about people's offline habits -- such as recent purchases, where you live, how many kids you have, and what kind of car you drive.

Here's how it works, according to some revealing marketing literature we came across from digital marketing firm LiveRamp:

• A retailer -- let's call it The Pricey Store -- collects the e-mail addresses of its high-spending customers.
• The Pricey Store brings the list to LiveRamp, which locates the customers online when the customers use their email address to log into a website that has a relationship with LiveRamp. (The identity of these websites is a closely guarded secret.) The website that has a relationship with LiveRamp then allows LiveRamp to "tag" the customers' computer with a tracker.
• When those high-spending customers arrive at PriceyStore.com, they see a version of the site customized to "show more expensive offerings to them." (Yes, the marketing documents really say that.)
• Tracking people using their real names -- often called "onboarding" -- is a hot trend in Silicon Valley. "The marriage of online and offline is the ad targeting of the last 10 years on steroids," said Scott Howe, chief executive of broker firm Acxiom. The Direct Marketing Association, which represents the data broker industry, doesn't offer a specific opt-out for onboarding. It does offer a global opt-out from all of its members' direct mail databases, but it only requires members to remove people's data for three years after they opt-out.