What is the RTB System?

Definition

RTB stands for Real Time Bidding. It is an automated online auction system invented by Google to trade access to our personal data with advertisers. Millions of bids are placed by advertisers, trillions of times per second, for the right to place an ad in a certain location, using micro-targeting based on our personal data. It is also refered to as 'Bid Stream'.

That's the official description. Unofficially it has been called the biggest data breach in history.

RTB constantly broadcasts sensitive information about people as they use the internet. The data are broadcast to large numbers of other entities without security measures to protect the data.

Why is the RTB system a problem?

If the RTB system was solely used by advertisers it would still feel creepy, but it would not be too dangerous.

The problem is that it is not only advertisers that can access the data. Anyone can pay to pose as an advertiser and gain access. And it gets worse: it's not only the winning bid that gets the data, anyone bidding in each auction gets access to the data!

And that's not all. The data is aggregated, meaning that your data is put in with the data of others like you, so that supposedly you cannot be identified. But it turns out that it's possible to 'disaggregate' or 'de-anonymise' the data, if you really want to and you have the technical skill. This is possible by triangulating certain pieces of data with other datasets e.g. credit card purchases datasets.

This is not just theory. This report shows that foreign governments have been posing as advertisers, gaining access to RTB data, and using it to keep track of the location and behaviour of key EU, UK and US political figures and military personnel 😲

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➡️ How did Big Tech get so powerful?