Publication
Title
Finding similar mobile consumers with a privacy-friendly geosocial design
Author
Abstract
This paper focuses on finding the same and similar users based on location-visitation data in a mobile environment. We propose a new design that uses consumer-location data from mobile devices (smartphones, smart pads, laptops, etc.) to build a geosimilarity network among users. The geosimilarity network (GSN) could be used for a variety of analytics-driven applications, such as targeting advertisements to the same user on different devices or to users with similar tastes, and to improve online interactions by selecting users with similar tastes. The basic idea is that two devices are similar, and thereby connected in the GSN, when they share at least one visited location. They are more similar as they visit more shared locations and as the locations they share are visited by fewer people. This paper first introduces the main ideas and ties them to theory and related work. It next introduces a specific design for selecting entities with similar location distributions, the results of which are shown using real mobile location data across seven ad exchanges. We focus on two high-level questions: (1) Does geosimilarity allow us to find different entities corresponding to the same individual, for example, as seen through different bidding systems? And (2) do entities linked by similarities in local mobile behavior show similar interests, as measured by visits to particular publishers? The results show positive results for both. Specifically, for (1), even with the data samples limited observability, 70%80% of the time the same individual is connected to herself in the GSN. For (2), the GSN neighbors of visitors to a wide variety of publishers are substantially more likely also to visit those same publishers. Highly similar GSN neighbors show very substantial lift.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Information systems research / Institute of Management Sciences [Providence, R.I.] - Linthicum, Md, 1990, currens
Publication
Linthicum, Md : 2015
ISSN
1047-7047 [print]
1526-5536 [online]
DOI
10.1287/ISRE.2015.0576
Volume/pages
26 :2 (2015) , p. 243-265
ISI
000356605700001
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
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UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 26.06.2015
Last edited 09.10.2023
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