Targeted advertising is one of today’s hot media buzzwords. Targeted advertising involves the compilation of detailed information about consumer preferences, specifically their Internet and other media consumption habits. Analyzing consumer data allows for individualized or targeted advertising.

Based on the author’s diploma thesis written at Darmstadt University of Technology, this book provides a broad overview of trends and developments in targeted advertising, covering all relevant information and communications technology (ICT) channels: the web, Internet protocol television (IPTV), the mobile environment, and converged scenarios. It provides an introduction to underlying technologies. In addition to the technological aspects, the author attempts to cover the business and legal aspects of targeted technologies as a supplement to the core material on a use case driven analysis of existing and upcoming targeted advertising scenarios across the ICT space.

Written in seven chapters, starting with the book’s goal and the methodology followed (guided interviews) for collecting inputs for use case analysis for various scenarios, and ending with conclusions and the future outlook of targeted advertising, the author covers the following core material on the subject: some basic definitions and explanations around targeted advertising; use case identification and description; technological use case analysis; key building blocks in targeted advertising technologies; identity management issues; and business and legal aspects of targeted advertising.

The book follows a structure similar to a research thesis. It begins with the author’s short preface, an abstract, a table of contents, and lists of figures, tables, and abbreviations. An extensive bibliography and an appendix (the interview questionnaire and responses) follow the concluding chapter. One omission is a subject index. Notwithstanding this, both the structure and length of coverage of this niche subject are quite appropriate and would definitely appeal to researchers in the area.

Two observations are relevant here. The first relates to the coverage of legal aspects of targeted advertising, comprising a portion of chapter 6. The coverage of legal aspects is rather narrowly restricted to German laws only. Keeping the global reach of advertising in the information technology (IT) space today in view, perhaps this section should have included applicable laws of some other countries too, particularly for the much larger markets of China and India. The second observation is about the rapid technological developments happening in the ICT space, particularly in converged scenarios. Though the book’s main strength is its coverage of the technological aspects of targeted advertising, the content may be outdated in two or three years. Perhaps the next edition of the book can take address these two concerns.

Overall, the book is well structured and presented as a research treatise on the subject. It will also be useful to media professionals working in the ICT space.