Also in 2004, Jeff Ballabon, a senior executive at niche content publisher and Internet giant Primedia, Inc., owner of About.com, independently engaged in a form of microtargeting for the Jewish vote.
"According to people familiar with the campaign, he advised the White House on how to reach each of the dozens of distinct Orthodox communities-Syrian and Hungarian, Hasidic and Haredi.
[13][14] "It's no secret that the other side [Republicans] figured this out a little sooner", said Josh Syrjamaki, director of the Minnesota chapter of America Votes in October 2006.
[22] In the 2016 United States presidential election, Cambridge Analytica played a role in first promoting Ted Cruz and, eventually, Donald Trump.
The data from people's digital footprints is analysed to create and convey messages that reflect an individual's preferences and personality, as a means of influencing their behaviour.
[25] Research has shown that such digital footprints can be used to accurately and unobtrusively predict psychological traits and states of large groups of people.
[27] A parallel Democratic effort is being developed by Catalist, a $9 million initiative headed by Harold Ickes,[14] while the leading non-partisan database is offered by Aristotle.
For instance, the company Cambridge Analytica added the OCEAN psychological profile (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) analysis to other private and public data, and developed the ability to “micro-target” individual consumers or voters with messages most likely to influence their behavior.
These data are particularly illuminating when portrayed through a geographic information system (GIS), where trends based on location can be mapped alongside dozens or hundreds of other variables.
This geographic depiction also makes it ideal for volunteers to visit potential voters (armed with lists in hand, laid out in the shortest route—much like how FedEx and UPS pre-determine delivery routes).