The study was conducted by Lisa Barnard, assistant professor of integrated marketing communications at Ithaca College. Her background in social media listening as part of New York City’s advertising industry served as the impetus for the study into how consumers felt about being tracked.

"My experience was that consumer's reactions to it were not good. They found it to be really creepy. We would get hate mail back when they realized what was happening," Barnard said.

The practice of tailoring ads to individuals is so prevalent because online marketers are relying on older research about the effectiveness of tailored ads and failing to consider how newer technologies can keep detailed tabs on a specific consumer’s activity. That combination has led to creepy advertising.

“Creepiness” is defined by the feeling consumers get when they sense an ad is too personal because it uses data the consumer did not agree to give – such as online searches and browsing – and when they’re unclear how and where that information will be used.

Participants in the study were actually told they were participating in two separate studies in the same sitting. In the “first,” they were shown a page from a mock shopping site. Some participants saw a USB flash drive while others saw an ad for acne cream. They were asked to read the details of whichever product they saw and to rank the features of each afterward.