Privacy fears as report reveals advertisers track which EMOJI you use to determine your emotional state

As if tracking the websites you visit, your location and Google searches wasn’t enough, now brands may be looking at your emojis to serve up the next advertisement you see.

Since 2016, Twitter has offered advertisers the ability to see which emojis users are sending in the app.  

That data turns out to be a gold mine for advertisers, which look at your emojis to determine your emotional state, then deliver highly targeted ads depending on your current mood, according to Vox. 

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Twitter noted that advertisers can use the emoji data to show users ads based on their mood, ‘target people who tweet food emojis’ and ‘reach people on their passions.’ 

‘If someone puts a thumbs up or a smiley face, show them this ad,’ Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer at 4C Insights, one of the companies working with Twitter, told Marketplace. 

‘If they do a frowny face or a thumbs down, show them a different ad,

‘We’ve seen people targeting football and basketball emojis for athletic wear,’ he added.

Some emojis are more obvious than others, such as a smiley face emoji, the heart eyes emoji or the crying emoji. 

But others may be more difficult to interpret, such as the blank-faced emoji. 

As a result, advertisers are using artificial intelligence to detect and analyze patterns in emoji use in order to determine why they might be using it. 

Advertisers say it will be better for both brands and consumers, as internet users will see more ads that are relevant to them, while brands may be more likely to have someone interact with their ad. 

‘Advertisers don’t want to sell you something if you don’t want it, right? It wastes our dollars and it wastes your time,’ TeeJay Hughes, a strategic account manager at AdParlor, which offers emoji-targeted ads, told Marketplace. 

‘So if we can make advertising relevant, that’s the beauty of it.’ 

Some brands have already put the practice into use. 

In 2017, Toyota ran an ad campaign that aimed to match people’s moods based on their emoji use. 

The carmaker created 83 different versions of the same commercial based on different emoji and published the ads on Twitter. 

Still, it’s likely to generate concerns from privacy advocates who say not all users may be aware of or want their emoji choices to be analyzed by advertisers.