Bizarre Ad Postings on SSRN

So I’ve noticed that lately, when I go to view articles on SSRN, I have been getting a little pane coming up on the right hand side of the screen that gives me advertising links.  These advertising links are ostensibly based on the content of the abstract/article that I’m looking at, to try to match my interests with companies that want to sell me something. 

Now, my gmail account does this, too, and I’ve found it a bit disturbing.  (Recently, I came across a student note discussing the privacy implications of this; interesting, although it seems to focus pretty heavily on the law firm context.  See Jason Miller, “Don’t Be Evil”: G-Mail’s Relevant Text Advertisements Violate Google’s Own Motto and Your E-mail Privacy Rights,” 33 Hofstra L. Rev. 1607 (2005)).

In any event, this SSRN advertising raised a couple questions:

First, while I don’t like it, I guess I understand why Google does this.  Money, profit.  After all, they need to finance that acquisition of YouTube somehow.  On the other hand, I thought SSRN was a non-profit.  Maybe I’m wrong on that.  (Correction: I am wrong on that.  'Tis a for-profit.  What that means is that I should be getting paid for every time I've mentioned them :).  Of course, regardless of its organization, SSRN may need ad revenue to cover expenses.  I certainy don’t begrudge anyone, but I guess I’m just asking.

Second, the technology is not quite where you would hope it would be.  It doesn’t match you up seamlessly with advertisers, at all.  Because I’m egotistical (Er, I guess I am an academic? And we’re never egotistical… ) I took a look at my own abstracts (shameless link) to see what was being flogged there.

No surprise, the abstract for the article dealing with the fortieth anniversary of Title VII had links to employment lawyers.  The abstract to my contracts-dinosaur piece featured a link to a game, “dinosaur,” which actually made me want to check it out.  Where it started getting weird were my two pieces on information markets, which featured ads dealing with Pilates.  Ooookay.  And then strangest of all was the satire about law review publishing, an amusing piece of fluff I wrote with my colleague Brannon Denning. Everything from psychiatrists to days spas.  I tell you.  Maybe we're beyond help...