As noted previously on various yadda-yadda (and blogs naturally ;), google has announced they will start enabling "demographic site targeting". See here. At first blush, I yawned at this announcement. This type of targeting, or way to aggregate sites into groups an advertiser might want to target based upon audience demographics, has been around since the invention of the ad network, more or less.
It does however bring to the brain the important question: When will google allow behavioral targeting?
G certainly has a fair amount of data on individual users and even if it doesn't know the age or gender of the majority of internet users, it does know a fair amount about their search history, in many cases. And as their product set strengthens, they will know more and more demographic data as well.
I for one am very curious to understand if they can start to enjoy the behaviorally targeted slice of the internet advertising pie, or if there are indeed too many privacy roadblocks for this "do-no-evil" company which has some much public visibility, to offer targeting at this granular of a level.
If I were G and I had just a few fantastic public relations strategists and spinmeisters to spare, I'd put the bulk of their time towards making sure G could compete with other networks and aggregators on the behavioral level, and use the data they have.
