Anonymous Personalization
If the web is a Communication Medium, today it is not a mass medium in the traditional sense. Broadcast mass media communication is standardized (providing the same content for each user) and generalized (addressing everyone).
What appears on the screen of our computer or smartphone, or what our personal assistant tells us, instead, is different from what anyone else receives.
adressi̲e̲ren ⇒ Basic Concepts ⇒ Addressability ⇒ Consciousness and Social System ⇒ Communicative Address ⇒ Inclusion and Exclusion ⇒ Child ⇒ ‘Dense’ Address ⇒ Living Economy
We are addressed by name and informed about restaurants and happenings in our surroundings, or about sporting events that may interest us; we are notified of our appointments, of traffic conditions on the routes we take, or of birthdays of friends and relatives; we receive music playlists and movie suggestions matching our tastes.
We come to know what happens in the world through the tailored format of our news feed, and when we look for information, Google presents us with results especially selected for us—as well as with a multitude of commercial ads that are supposed to specifically meet our wishes. page 
Whereas mass media communication is anonymous, communications on the web are increasingly personalized. Being personally addressed by machines, however, is different from being personally addressed by actual persons. tweet
Algorithms do not know us nor do they understand us, yet profiling techniques make it possible to provide each user (a reader, a viewer) with targeted information related to their interests and needs. In both cases (analog and digital), the outcome is a specific message for a single recipient; but algorithmically constructed profiles have very different compositions from the kinds of personalization used by human communication partners—and very different results. A lively debate is currently investigating the forms that this difference takes in digital communication. Alexa calling us by our name, to which we respond by asking her for advice, is not the same as a conversation with a friend or colleague—but in what ways, and with what consequences? Does this form of “de-massification” in media create space or expand it for the self-realization and individualization of users? Could it be doing the opposite?
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DOT FROM lambda-browsing