Behavioral Profiling
Advertising
Inference and segmentation of users based on behavioral data and predictive models.
Definition
Behavioral profiling uses collected behavioral data to infer attributes and assign users to segments, often using statistical or machine-learning models. Outputs can affect ads, recommendations, and pricing.
Why this matters
Why it matters: Profiling increases privacy risk, can enable discrimination, and may be opaque to users.
Example
Example: User assigned to “high-value” segment, changing which offers or content are shown.