Although Internet advertising only really started in 1994, revenues showed a steady and fast growth. In 1997 US$ 906.5 million were spent on on-line advertising. Compared with advertising revenue for the television industry in equivalent dollars for its third year, the Internet was slightly ahead, at US$ 907 million compared to television's US$ 834 million. 1998 on-line advertising grew by 112 percent to US$ 1.92 billion in revenues, and is on track to hit US$ 4 billion in 1999, which would put Internet advertising at about 2 percent of the U.S. ad market.
Table: Spending on On-Line Advertising by Category
(first quarter 1999)
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Table: Types of On-Line Advertising
(first quarter 1999)
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Source: Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
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Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people.
User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.
"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent."
(David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)
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Supposedly his real name was Aeneas of Stymphalus. He was a Greek military scientist and cryptographer. He invented an optical system for communication similar to a telegraph: the