A fascinating account of an advertising practice little understood.
Hoffman, an ad agency veteran, details the political and legal dangers posed by tracking-based advertising.
The author observes that the online advertising business is now colossal—approximately $350 billion is spent on it annually, though few businesses understand the “arcane nature of the online advertising ecosystem.” As a result, it is nearly impossible to precisely estimate its benefits or to effectively regulate it, and it is terrifyingly vulnerable to criminals and terrorists looking to exploit it. Hoffman is especially concerned with tracking-based advertising, which employs intrusive surveillance to collect personal data about internet users to either sell or share it. The ramifications of this now ubiquitous corporate spying are unsettling and, according to the author, even pose a threat to democracy itself. The principal political risks are twofold: First, they contribute to the nation’s partisan polarization by promoting misinformation and encouraging rhetorical incivility, as these tactics attract attention—the author asserts that nothing produces clicks on social media like “false, sensational, slanderous, and scurrilous” posts. They also pose a threat to national security insofar as the personal data mined is left completely unprotected, providing a wealth of opportunities not just to criminals, but also state-sponsored hackers. These points of vulnerability are rigorously documented by the author in this concise synopsis of the issue. Hoffman writes that tracking-based advertising isn’t even very effective, a fact well known within the industry but concealed because it is nevertheless very profitable. He concludes that the tracking-based adtech industry is “organized crime at a global scale that has been normalized by involving virtually every major corporation, every pretty-sounding trade organization, and the entire advertising, marketing, and online media industry.” Hoffman’s writing is spirited and can slide into unrestrained hyperbole—it is simply not the case that the “time when intelligent people of good will could disagree in a civilized manner” has completely vanished. However, his account of the way in which advertising data collection works is as meticulous as it is accessible, and his presentation of its dangers is illuminating. For readers in search of a brief study of the issue, this is an eye-opening book.
A fascinating account of an advertising practice little understood.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 9780999230749
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Type A Group
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
