[View the story "#DataMining the US election" on Storify ]#DataMining the US election How are campaigns using personal online data to win the presidential race? Storified by The Stream · Tue, Oct 16 2012 10:43:52
This year alone, the US Democratic and Republican national committees have
spent more than $13 million combined on data acquisition and consulting services. Through data collection and analysis, also called data mining, campaigns are able to amass an extensive amount of information about individual voters.
Data mining techniques have long been used by advertising and marketing companies to help detect patterns in consumer behaviour, as demonstrated in the video below. Similar techniques are used to distinguish individual internet users' behaviour online.
DataMining / An OverviewSarah Calandro
This video shows how personal data shared online might be picked up by outside parties.
Amazing mind reader reveals his 'gift'duvalguillaume
Though the video uses hyperbole to prove a point, the breadth of online data that can be collected is not exaggerated. The chart below
demonstrates how users' online activity provides political campaigns with information and feedback.
undefinedMotherjones
Sometimes, data amassed about online users is collected voluntarily. Both campaign websites for
Mitt Romney and
Barack Obama have features that allow users to share their interactions with the campaign via Facebook or other social media accounts. This syncing option also grants campaigns access to information on third-party social sites.
MyMitt login pageAJstream
Data mining was also used during the 2008 election, though to a less invasive extent. In the video below, Dan Siroker, Director of Analytics for the 2008 Obama campaign, discusses the role of data analysis in winning the election:
How We Used Data to Win the Presidential ElectionStanfordUniversity
Public records about campaign supporters, volunteers, and other data that has traditionally been collected by campaign staffers is now shared on a wider public platform that includes social media and mobile apps.
The 2012
Obama for America app is
meant to help canvassers' on-the-ground efforts, and provides users with the locations, age and gender of registered voters in their area. Some are
concerned about the privacy implications of listing this public information in a no cost, ready-to-use mobile app.
"I think some people view this app as creepy but there is nothing illegal about what they are doing," said Lior Strahilevitz, a law professor at University of ChicagoMobile app sparks Obama camp voter drive, privacy fears | Reuters
"They are aggregating a whole bunch of public records and using location-aware mapping technology. If a corporation or a political campaign wants to use that information and disseminate it in a useful way, there is no violation of American privacy laws," Strahilevitz said.Mobile app sparks Obama camp voter drive, privacy fears | Reuters
undefinedApple
Other times, user data is collected passively, based on what internet searches people perform, what sites they visit, and how long they stay on certain websites.
A wide range of online behaviour has been correlated with users' political beliefs, as this graph from EngageDC shows. For example, users of eBay and PayPal tend to vote Republican.
undefinedEngagedc
Graphics from a study by the
National Media Research Planning and Placement also correlate personal politics with more general uses of the internet including online financial services, fantasy sports leagues and use of instant messaging.
Campaigns have also performed the same analysis for some types of offline behaviour, like
church attendance , to locate their most receptive audiences.
undefinedTheatlantic
Campaigns use this information in conjunction with behavioural targeting to
tweak their messages,
microtarget their issues, and pitch their fundraising goals. In a piece for Mother Jones magazine, Tim Murphy shares a sample Obama campaign e-mail that employs what he
calls "Jedi mind tricks".
undefinedMotherjones
Supporter ID number? Passive-aggressive receipt? Sounds like a Jedi mind trick.Obama Campaign Now Employing Jedi Mind Tricks | Mother Jones
US public opinion polls show a general wariness to data mining. According to one
study released in March:
68% of internet users agree with a statement that they are not okay with targeted advertising because they don’t like having their online behavior tracked and analyzedSearch Engine Use 2012 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
A July
study found that for tailored political ads, public perception was even more negative.
Fully 86% of Americans say they do not want “political advertising tailored to your interests.”The Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania
Prof. Joseph Turow: Tailored political ads and how Americans feel about themannenbergschool
Though campaigns are currently within their legal rights to collect, buy and use data on voters, there is
concern over privacy infringement. Certain privacy laws like the federal
Do Not Call registry do not apply to political campaigns. Moreover, there is little regulation of data usage in this field.
As campaigns crunch the numbers, they face few rules governing how they use the data; those they follow are largely self-imposed, or else dictated by licensing agreements with data suppliers.Voter Data: What the Candidates Know About You
Both the
Obama and
Romney campaign websites include privacy statements laying out their parameters on data usage.
