Further Reading: Chapter 14 — Behavioral Targeting and Real-Time Bidding

1. Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. Penguin Press, 2011.

The original and most accessible account of algorithmic content personalization and its implications for information diversity and democratic discourse. Written before the full behavioral targeting infrastructure was public knowledge, but prescient about its consequences. A necessary starting point for the filter bubble debate. Pariser's subsequent corrections and complications of his own thesis are worth tracking in his public writing.

2. Angwin, Julia, and Terry Parris Jr. "Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race." ProPublica, October 28, 2016.

The primary investigative journalism source for the housing advertising discrimination case. The investigation was conducted through direct testing of Facebook's advertising platform and remains the most important single piece of journalism on behavioral targeting discrimination. Freely available at propublica.org.

3. Cadwalladr, Carole, and Emma Graham-Harrison. "Revealed: 50 Million Facebook Profiles Harvested for Cambridge Analytica in Major Data Breach." The Guardian, March 17, 2018.

The Guardian investigation that broke the Cambridge Analytica story publicly. The article, along with reporting from the New York Times and Channel 4 News, is the primary journalistic source for the case. Worth reading alongside Wylie's memoir for the contrast between journalistic account and insider account.

4. Wylie, Christopher. Mindfck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America.* Random House, 2019.

The memoir of the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who provided documents to Cadwalladr and subsequently testified to parliamentary and congressional committees. Wylie's account is first-person, subjective, and occasionally self-serving, but provides detail on the company's internal operations and methodology that no external account can match. Read critically, with attention to what Wylie can verify and what he cannot.

5. Turow, Joseph. The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power. Yale University Press, 2017.

Turow's investigation of behavioral tracking in retail contexts — including price discrimination, loyalty program surveillance, and in-store monitoring — provides the commercial context for this chapter's price discrimination discussion. Accessible and well-reported; particularly strong on the mechanics of retail data collection.

6. Biddle, Sam. "Google's Surveillance of Black Lives Matter Was Deeply Disturbing." The Intercept, 2022. (Check publication for accurate citation.)

Investigative reporting on the use of advertising platform data and targeting infrastructure for surveillance of political movements. Connects the commercial surveillance infrastructure of Chapter 14 to the political surveillance concerns previewed in Chapter 13 and developed in Chapter 36.

7. Swire, Peter, and Kenesa Ahmad. "'That Third Party Gets Your Data': The Problem of Third-Party Disclosure." Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 2011.

A legal analysis of the third-party data broadcast problem in digital advertising — the legal and privacy implications of the mass simultaneous disclosure of user data to dozens of companies in RTB bid requests. Technically demanding but provides legal framework for the RTB data leak concern.

8. O'Neil, Cathy. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Crown, 2016.

Already listed in Chapter 11's further reading, but particularly relevant here for its analysis of how behavioral algorithms reproduce and amplify inequality — the foundation of the redlining 2.0 analysis. O'Neil's chapter on advertising and targeting is directly applicable.

9. Kosinski, Michal, Sandra C. Matz, Samuel D. Gosling, Vesselin Popov, and David Stillwell. "Facebook as a Research Tool for the Social Sciences: Opportunities, Challenges, Ethical Considerations, and Practical Guidelines." American Psychologist 70, no. 6 (2015): 543–556.

A reflection by some of the researchers behind the original Facebook Likes personality prediction study on the ethical and methodological challenges of social media data research. Provides context for the Cambridge Analytica case from the academic researchers whose work it appropriated. Useful for understanding the gap between the original research intent and Cambridge Analytica's commercial application.

10. Gorwa, Robert, Reuben Binns, and Christian Katzenbach. "Algorithmic Content Moderation: Technical and Political Challenges in the Automation of Platform Governance." Big Data & Society 7, no. 1 (2020).

While focused on content moderation rather than advertising, this article provides essential background on how algorithmic decision-making on platforms works and what the governance challenges are — directly applicable to understanding both the filter bubble and discriminatory targeting issues in this chapter.

Further Reading | Chapter 14 | Part 3: Commercial Surveillance